Tips for Optimizing your Website

May

Many tools make it easy to build a website yourself these days (we offer a super easy-to-use web builder ourselves). However, building your website is only part of the battle. Once you build your website you want to make sure it is optimized for performance and SEO. Whether you build your website yourself or hire a professional to do it for you - below are some useful tips for you to be aware of to make sure your website is well-optimized.

Don’t use extremely large images

This includes both the size of the file and the dimensions of the image being used. It is important for users that when they visit a page on your website, that it loads quickly. The more your customers have to wait for your page to load, the more incentive they have to leave your site and go elsewhere. It’s for this reason that Google and other search engines consider this when it comes to determining your rank. Want to be ranked higher? Load faster!

What you can do to decrease the size of your images:

Make sure your images are in the right dimensions. There is no need to load a 4000-pixel wide image on your website. Decreasing the dimensions will also decrease your file size.
Use the save for web feature in Photoshop to decrease the size of your images.

For more details on this, watch a video we made about optimizing your images for the web using Adobe Photoshop.

Use real text, don’t embed it within your images

When you include site content within your images rather than as actual text you create issues both with the page speed and search engine optimization. The more images that the web browser needs to load, the longer it will take to load. Whereas plain text loads much quicker.

Search engines also rely on real text to index your site and serve it to users who search for particular words or phrases. Web crawlers cannot read the content within images, even if it is extremely valuable information. You are doing yourself a huge disservice by not allowing search engines to know about this content and provide it to their users.

In addition to these points, embedding images within text create accessibility issues for visually impaired individuals who rely on screen readers to dictate content to them.

Make sure your site is mobile-friendly

Everyone has slightly different statistics to back this up, but one thing that is universally agreed upon is the growth of web viewing through mobile devices. If your website is not mobile-friendly, those users who are viewing it on their smartphone are going to bounce almost immediately - potentially costing you a customer.

Your website should be coded to be responsive so it will scale to fit whatever type of device your visitors are viewing it on. We’ve talked about responsive design before, so be sure to read that blog post for more valuable information.

What you can do to make sure your website is mobile-friendly:

Test it out for yourself, open your website on a mobile device. If it is really hard to read and everything looks small, chances are your website is not mobile-friendly. You could be due for a redesign. If you don’t know where to start, reach out to use or a free quote!
If you are building a website yourself, make sure your web builder offers responsive themes. Our web builder, WebdeXpress, offers a ton of mobile-friendly themes.
If you have hired a Web Developer and the website they are building for you isn’t readable on a smartphone, consider that a huge red flag. Every website we build at PSPINC is responsive and meant for devices of all types.

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These are just a few of the things we take into consideration when we build websites for customers. There are so many other things we do to ensure the websites we provide are well optimized, extremely visible, and perform to the best of their ability.

If you are looking for a free quote, or have a question for us please contact us on social media, by phone at 1-800-232-3889, or email at contact@pspinc.com. We would be happy to help make sure your website is a valuable tool for your business!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

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Let us make your dream come true!!!

May

Drawn by Kenichi Uchikura, President of PSPINC

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is an independent software development company established in 1987. PSPINC has switch from packaged software to "Software as a Service (SaaS)", web based application development in 1996.

Based on our experience and know-how, we can make your dream application into a reality. If you have a need to increase your productivity or start new web based service, please let PSPINC help you.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

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PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol.61 "What is a Server"

Apr

Vol. 61

We often use the word "server" when talking about the Internet. What is a server? Some people ask me if a server is a type of device or a specific OS (operating system). For example, in my company, we have over 500 servers in our data center. It sounds great, but what does it mean?

What is the difference between a server and the PC that you are using?

The answer is, that both your PC and the server are basically the same. The PC you are using can be used as a server. However, a server has its role and certain modifications to perform that role. Let's look at the hardware differences, which are just modifications to keep the computer running stably, and are not absolutely necessary.

Duplicate power supplies so if one of them breaks, your server can still run.
The network cards are also duplicated so that if one of them breaks, your server can still run.
More memory than a normal PC
It uses multiple, high-speed CPUs
More disk space

These are some of the ways a PC and a server differ, but beyond that, there are no other major differences.

Next, let's consider the usage.

On a PC, individuals use various software to do their work.

A server processes and delivers the necessary data to a large number of users.

A PC allows users to install and use any software they want, such as word processing software to write sentences. A server, however, is not something that an individual user can install and use as needed. From the beginning, the software installed on a server is determined based on its use. For example, a server with mail server software installed is designated to be a mail server. A server that stores data is called a storage server and a server that hosts websites is called a web server.

This is the difference between a server and a PC. Servers are difficult to set up and require expert knowledge to maintain and operate. This is the reason why people don't have servers in their offices.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

#PacificSoftwarePublishing #PSPINC #WebandEmailHosting #SeattleBellevue #SoftwareDevelopment #WebDevelopment #ApplicationDevelopment #Bloguru

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How To Customize WordPress Permalinks

Apr

Permalinks are the URLs to your pages and posts on your WordPress website. These are permanent links search engines and web visitors see when they go to your site. For these reasons, it’s important to customize your WordPress permalinks for better SEO and visibility.

WordPress Permalinks Default Settings

By default, WordPress sets your permalinks to “Plain”. You can find the permalinks settings under Settings > Permalinks. This sets your pages and posts URLs with a number, such as "http://wordpress.dreamersi.net/?p=123"

This is not very user-friendly, because the address does not tell the users what the page is about. Search engines will also associate your pages with a number, which is not good for SEO. The URLs to your pages and posts should contain relevant keywords that reflect your content.

Changing WordPress Permalinks

Changing permalinks will affect existing pages and posts you have already created. If you have existing pages with good search engine performance, you should create 301 redirects to preserve your traffic. Install 301 Redirects – Easy Redirect Manager plugin to setup 301 redirects to prevent a loss of search ranking on your existing pages.

Ideal Settings for WordPress Permalinks

Under Settings > Permalinks, change your permalinks settings from “Plain” to “Post name”. Then click “Save Changes”. This will change the URL addresses of your pages to be more search engine friendly. For an example, compare "http://wordpress.dreamersi.net/?p=123" to "http://wordpress.dreamersi.net/customize-wordpress-permalinks/", the latter using post name tells the users what the content is about from just the URL address. This will also help Google index your page as the URL contains relevant keywords.

Customizing Permalinks

You can customize your permalinks further under “Custom Structure”. A popular custom structure uses /%category%/%postname%/, this would include the category name in the URL address. For an example, if you were to create a how to customize wordpress permalinks blog under the category “Better SEO”, the URL would come out as:

"http://wordpress.dreamersi.net/better-seo/customize-wordpress-permalinks/"

You see how this might improve page rankings, as the URL includes several relevant keywords that users might search for on Google.

Why Not Day and Month

Putting a date on your content URL tends to make your content seem outdated very quickly. When people are searching for answers, they are less likely to click on something dated 5 years ago. People want to know the content they click on is up-to-date and relevant.

However, there are times when putting a date in the URL makes sense. If you are a magazine publication, putting dates in the URLs will allow your users to search for specific content they want to read. High traffic news websites will also benefit from having proper date structure in their addresses.

In Summary

WordPress default permalink setting is not user-friendly, and it’s bad for SEO. Having the proper permalink setting configured from the start is ideal. Utilize a 301 redirect plugin if you have existing content and you want to preserve their traffic when making permalink updates.

Looking for reliable cPanel WordPress hosting? Check out Parcom’s 60% off promotion for only $2.90/month and get a free domain name. Launch your own WordPress website today! Need technical support or web design assistance? Call 800-232-3989.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

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A quick guide to typography for the web

Feb

Typography is one of the most important aspects of web design, yet also perhaps one of the most overlooked. Anybody can choose a typeface, but choosing the right typeface and then displaying it correctly can be a crucial step to reaching your users. Here are some tips for enhancing your website’s typography:

Choosing the right typeface.

First of all, yes it’s called a typeface, not a font. Without getting into too many details, Helvetica is a typeface, 18pt Helvetica Light is a font. Moving on. Generally, when choosing a typeface for your website, the choice often comes down to serif vs sans-serif. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer here, but some people feel very strongly one way or the other. Recent studies have found that sans-serif may be slightly more readable than serif, but the margin is very slim and ultimately comes down to preference, and what you’re used to reading. Display fonts are fine for headers, but avoid using anything other than a basic serif or sans-serif for your body copy.

Font size and line-height.

The next step is deciding the right size and spacing for your chosen type. These values will need to change based on device type and screen size (see image below), but in regards to font sizing for a desktop the common rule is to choose something in the 16-21px range. Your line spacing (line-height) should be in the range of 130%-170% of your font size. For instance, if you have a font size of 16px, a line-height of 150% would equal 24px.

Line Length for maximum readability.

Another important aspect to typography for the web is setting a reasonable line length. There have been many studies on this, which all find that the ideal line length for maximum readability is somewhere in the range of 45-80 characters. This is probably one of the most easily overlooked topics of typography, but critical to retaining user attention. See the image below for examples of various character lengths.

A couple more things.

Anyone who has ever tried to read yellow text on a white background has experienced the importance of a proper contrast between your type and background color. A general rule is to shoot for a contrast of at least 4.5:1 between type and background, but this varies depending on the weight of your font. Finally, make sure to establish an appropriate visual hierarchy between headers and body copy. This will allow users to scan your content as needed to find what they’re looking for.

If you’d like some help figuring out the perfect way to reach your users by creating a beautiful, easily readable and scannable website, don’t hesitate to reach out. Let our design team help you out with that.

Check Out PSPinc Design Solutions

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

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Questions from Customers

Feb

Today we are going to answer some questions we have received from customers over time. We hope you find it informative! If you don't find an answer to a question you have please contact us - we may feature you in a future entry to the Questions from Customers series!

Who is PSPinc?

PSPinc is a full-service web hosting, design, and software development company headquartered in Bellevue, WA. We house close to 50 employees and provide service to thousands of clients worldwide. PSPinc has rapidly grown with the age of the internet over the past three decades. Our groundbreaking technology has aided in globalizing software solutions and driving innovation in the webspace. As an independent software design and development company, we use our technology to create software to help companies save and make money.

What is the meaning of “Web Hosting”?

A web hosting service (often shortened to web host) is a type of Internet hosting service that allows you to make your website accessible through the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies, like PSPinc, that provide space on a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

PSPinc Hosting Services

We offer a number of options at various price points and technical specifications each with its own advantages.

Our flagship hosting platform, Dreamersi provides reliable hosting services, and live customer support to give you peace of mind and allows you to focus on growing your company.

Lean and powerful web and email hosting. Our fast and secure YourHost platform allows you to manage all aspects of your hosting account through cPanel.

Robust web and email hosting designed to fit your needs. Parcom is perfect as a development platform for no-frills hosting.

VPS

If you have specific technical needs for your hosting environment, we have the technology and professional experts to build a VPS (virtual private server) environment for you. We can precisely match your technical requirements.

Does PSPinc have services other than hosting?

Yes, PSPinc offers not only hosting but a number of other services built to help businesses succeed online. For more information on our software as a service offering, visit our cloud services web page. You can click on any product name or logo to learn more about that service.

I want to create my own website, what should I do?

We recommend WebdeXpress for customers who are new to creating their own website. You can either choose to build a stunning website yourself or you can ask us to build it for you quickly and inexpensively.

I am starting my own business, should I create a website for it?

Yes! Your website is a very powerful and useful tool to communicate and share information with your customers. Whether you are starting a new business, want to stand out from your competitors, or have something to express - there is no better place to do it than on your website.

Can I sell my products on my website?

You sure can when you build your website with ShopSite. We can help set up and even develop a custom online eCommerce website using ShopSite on our YourHost web hosting platform. Did we mention we are a nationally recognized ShopSite hosting partner?

Contact Us

For inquiries about PSPinc services, please contact our Sales team who will provide the best plan for you with a polite and prompt response.
Call: 1-800-232-3989 / Email: psp_service@pspinc.com

For technical support, please contact our Support team. Not only will get help solving your problems but you can pick up technical tips and advice from our knowledgeable staff.
Call: 1-800-232-3989 / Email: support@pspinc.com

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

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What is responsive design?

Feb

Years ago web design was a lot simpler than it is today. People could only view websites on desktop computers, and the options for screen sizes and resolutions were very limited. For this reason, those websites are what we refer to as ‘fixed width’. Meaning no matter what size your browser window was, the website would never change.

With the advent of mobile devices (phones and tablets) of all shapes and sizes, this proved problematic. Having to pinch and zoom and scroll horizontally as well as vertically made the web viewing experience hard to navigate.

Enter "Responsive Design"

Responsive Design is an approach that makes web pages render appropriately on a variety of devices or screen resolutions. How it works is elements of the website change position, size, and visibility depending on how much space is available.

Where you may have a multi-column website layout on a desktop computer, a general rule is you would scale down to a single column display on a mobile device so everything stacks nicely. With a phone, it is really easy to swipe vertically with your thumb to navigate content.

More than one way to build a responsive website

There are many methods, approaches, and strategies for Web Developers to create a responsive website. A couple popular ways to build a responsive website are:

Mobile-first: It’s the idea of first building a website for the lowest browser size (mobile). This version should display the most basic functions and features. Anything that is perhaps unnecessary is hidden or pushed further down the page. As you advance to tablets and PC’s, additional interactions, effects, and complex layouts are slowly added over time.
Graceful degradation: This is the opposite, you start with the design at the most advanced end (desktop computers). As you scale down you start to limit functions, reduce the number of columns, and deliver a beautiful single-column mobile experience.

Both options have their pros and cons. Regardless of the approach, having a Designer making thoughtful choices is critical to ensuring your website is best optimized for whatever device your customer is using when navigating to your URL.

A few important considerations when building a responsive website

As your website scales down to mobile, your navigation should be contained within a ‘hamburger menu’. It is a fairly universal practice to manage your navigation, users can click to expand a full list of navigation items. This will save you space and make your nav links more manageable.

Previously mentioned, but as you scale down to mobile it is best to utilize a single column layout and stack everything to make it easy to read.

Make sure to utilize proper line height, spacing, and size for your typography as your screen size decreases.

We are really just scratching the surface here on responsive design. There is a lot to learn and take into consideration when planning your website.

If you don’t know whether your website is responsive or not, test it for yourself. Size your browser window down until it is really small. If the elements on your page don’t adjust and you are stuck with a horizontal scroll bar in your browser, odds are your site is NOT responsive.

It can be overwhelming but if you need advice or help with designing and developing a responsive website please let us know. We have a team of talented Designers and Developers skilled at making responsive websites. You can visit our Design Solutions page to take a look at our work and learn more about what we can do. You can call us toll-free 1-800-232-3989 or request a quote online.

Create a contact-less digital restaurant menu for your customers with ImaMenu

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

#MobileWeb #PSPinc #ResponsiveDesign #SoftwareDevelopment #WebDesign #WebDevelopment

3 Ways to Improve Your Restaurant with Opinion Stand

Jan

Did you know that when we began designing and developing Opinion Stand we were focused on a physical kiosk that customers would interact with?

With the devastating rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, we made some fundamental changes and pivoted to Papyrus. Which is a contact-less version where customers scan or enter a code to use the Opinion Stand on their own personal device.

While the process has changed, the core principles of what makes Opinion Stand so powerful to restaurant owners remains the same. Below you will learn 3 ways to improve your restaurant with Opinion Stand.

1. Address negative feedback before it ends up on Yelp

With the rise of social media platforms, the power to provide reviews and instantaneous feedback has never been more prevalent. Diners often use Yelp not just to get information about when a restaurant is open or its menu - but also to find out how it rates among Yelp users.

Bad experiences happen at amazing restaurants. Rather than having these experiences turn into negative Yelp reviews, Opinion Stand lets you (the restaurant Manager or Owner) to get that feedback. All customer feedback submitted via Opinion Stand goes directly to you, rather than putting it on public display.

2. Understand the impact of food delivery services

Restaurants have had to adapt their businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic to cater towards to-go dining. Food delivery services such as DoorDash, UberEats, and Postmates (to name a few) have continued to grow and expand.

When delivery customers receive their food, they tend to grade the entire experience. Even though these food delivery drivers are unaffiliated with your restaurant, the service they offer (like it or not) reflects on the overall dining experience.

Including Opinion Stand delivery flyers in your to-go orders allows your customers to evaluate their dining experience from the comfort of your home. Food too cold, items missing, something spilled? Get that feedback and make adjustments to cater towards delivery orders.

3. Gather customer contact information

Repeat business is critical to restaurants enjoying stability and success. While getting valuable customer feedback is a key value that Opinion Stand offers, there is another benefit to restaurant owners and managers.

With Opinion Stand, when a user submits feedback you can collect their contact information if you choose to. This allows you to curate mailing lists of your customers for sending promotional offers, coupons, and company news. Allowing you to talk directly to your customers and develop that relationship.

You can’t have your eyes on your business at all times..

.. but Opinion Stand lets you keep your finger on the pulse of how your customers enjoyed their time. Encouraging repeat visits and positive word-of-mouth promotion is truly invaluable.

We want to help restaurants who may be struggling through this pandemic. Sign up for Opinion Stand at a price you can pay. That’s right, you choose the price you can afford - you have nothing to lose!

Click Here Learn More and Sign Up Today!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

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What your company should do BEFORE building a website

Jan

Oftentimes when a company needs a new website, they just want to get it built as soon as possible. In reality, that doesn’t provide you with the best finished product. Here are a few very important steps your company should do before building a website:

Take the time to understand your users.

Who are you trying to reach? If you take a moment to understand who your target audience is, then you can start to formulate the best strategy for getting through to them. Who are they? What is it they want? What type of language and/or imagery is most likely to appeal to them? Remember, you aren’t trying to sell your services to yourself, so if your website is acting as a sales tool then you shouldn’t be building the website for yourself either. Build it for your users.

Determine your end goal.

What’s the ideal outcome from a visitor to your website? Do you want visitors to schedule an appointment? Maybe there’s a particular product or service you want to showcase? Perhaps you just want them to follow you on social media? Once you have an end goal in mind you’re ready to move onto the next step.

Create and organize your content.

This is the definitely the most difficult and also the most important step in this process. Your content is what will attract and retain users to your website. It’s also what will help you rank well in Google searches. It’s critical that you take the time to create meaningful content and organize it appropriately if you want your website to work for you. Using what you know from the last two steps, create content that is appealing to your target users, and organize it in a way that steers them towards your end goal. Use color, space, verbiage, and imagery to point them in the direction of your featured product or service.

Once you’ve taken these steps, you’re just about ready to start designing your new website. If you need some help with that, or just want to make sure you have a beautiful finished product to show for all of your hard work, don’t hesitate to reach out and let our professional designers do the heavy lifting for you. We’re here to help.
Check Out PSPinc Design Solutions

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

#PacificSoftwarePublishing #PSPINC #WebandEmailHosting #SeattleBellevue #SoftwareDevelopment #WebDevelopment #ApplicationDevelopment #Bloguru

#PSPinc #SoftwareDevelopment #WebDesign #WebDevelopment #WebsiteBuilder

Why it's important to have a website for your business

Jan

In this digital era, even small companies benefit from having a website. One of the major benefits offered by having a website for a small business is that it enables people to find you online and get in touch with you easily. Having an effective and compelling site can even lead to sales you would not have made otherwise leading to opportunities and growth.

Your business can benefit as well from a website!

What is the benefit of having a website?

It helps to establish credibility as a business

Attracts more customers via the Internet

You can share more information and can use it as a sales tool

It helps with your marketing, using analytics to better focus on areas of growth potential

Reduce cost

Recruiting

These are only a few of the benefits a website will bring to your business.

Looking to get started with your own website? PSPinc is here to support you!
This is a New Year with many opportunities ahead and having a website will help your business realize new opportunities for 2021. PSPinc offers WebdeXpress to establish your website - let’s make it happen together!

Sign up for a Dreamersi web hosting plan and you can use our WebdeXpress web builder to make your site. Don't have the time yourself? Have it Done For You by PSPinc web professional experts.