PSPINC Official Company Blog

Things to consider when deleting web pages

Nov

16

Web builder tools like WordPress and WebdeXpress are powerful. They grant website owners the power to make website updates themselves without the need of a Web Developer. As a great man once said - “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Adding or editing content and pages is one thing, but what happens when you need to remove pages from your website? You just press the delete button and poof it's gone - right?

Yes, but did you consider the consequences of removing content?

Remember, SEO (search engine optimization) is based on providing good quality content. Search engines are actively crawling websites and web pages for new content to serve users who make specific searches.

When you remove web pages, you have now removed a valid link to useful content on your website. What this means for users, is they won’t be provided with content relevant to their search. For search engines, they see that you are serving them a broken link, which will hinder your SEO efforts.

What should you do when you need to remove content from your website?

Deleting pages from your website is fine, and inevitable over time as you look to update and make changes. A website is never “finished,” it’s an ongoing and evolving element, like your business itself. To properly remove pages from your website you should set up 301 redirects.

According to Wikipedia, a 301 redirect is defined as follows:

The HTTP response status code 301 Moved Permanently is used for permanent redirecting, meaning that links or records returning this response should be updated. The new URL should be provided in the Location field, included with the response.

To summarize, when you remove a web page, you must update a configuration file on your webserver to ‘permanently redirect’ any traffic that comes to the removed page to a different relevant page. Over time, as search engines continue to crawl your website, they will recognize that a page has been removed, and no longer provide it as a search result.

While the exact format of your redirect will vary from site to site and server to server, the principle will remain the same. You can always consult the Web Developer for your website should you have questions.

—

If you have a website that needs updating and you don’t know where to start, let us know. We have experience not only in designing and developing websites, but we can help make sure the changes made are SEO-friendly.

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.

#SEO #WebDevelopment #WebsiteUpdates #Websites

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 89 "Vertical Application Development"

Nov

11

Have you ever heard of the term "vertical application development"? In the world, there are computer applications for everyone, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. These are called horizontal applications. In short, these horizontal applications are application programs that can be used regardless of industry, and are also called general-purpose programs.

Do you know what kind of program is a vertical application? It means a program that is developed and used for each industry or business. For example, factory machine control, distribution systems, warehouse management, hotel reservation systems, etc., you can't just buy a program that is sold to the public and use it. Therefore, software for such vertical markets needs to be developed from scratch.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. has a long history of developing vertical programs using Internet servers and the Internet as a communication environment. Online shopping is a given, but we have also developed systems for hotel reservation systems, agricultural product shipment management, parking voucher issuance, car rental reservation systems, and online ordering of printed materials.

If you think your business can be automated, we would like to talk to you. We believe that vertical applications can save you time and money and are a great return on investment.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://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

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.

#BusinessTools #SmallBusiness #VerticalApplications #WebApplication #WebDevelopment

The Importance of a Website Call to Action

Nov

2

Many times in this blog we have advocated the virtues of having a website to represent your business. We have discussed general reasons everyone should have a site. However, have you stopped to consider specifically why YOU should have a website of your own?

Your business is unique. You have your products, services, employees, and company culture that makes you uniquely your own. It’s because of this, that you must consider the purpose of your website in the context of how it can help your business.

As the title suggests, valuable sections of your website must have a clear and focused “call-to-action.”

What is a Call to Action?

Our friends over at Wikipedia define it as follows:

Call to Action is a marketing term for any design to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale.

Simply put, it is a way of visually prompting users to take the action you want them to take on a given web page. The way of prompting them should feel both intuitive and organic to achieve optimal success.

Call to Action Objectives

As I said earlier, your business is unique, and the objective for your call to action will be different as well. Below are a few common objectives for your call to action.

Sale: If you sell products on your website, your goal is clear, to convert website visitors into paying customers. Depending on the number and variety of products you sell, make sure to include professional visuals, clear pricing, and above-the-fold links to your most profitable products throughout your website. Whatever online shop system you are using is secure and intuitive so customers can easily make their purchase.

Lead Generation: If you sell a service or a product that requires a more personal touch it is important to gather contact information so you can follow up with a potential customer and sell them on what you have to offer. In this instance, your call to action would be a web form or phone number to prompt that user to follow up with you.
When it comes to web forms, less is more. Only require the minimum amount of information you need to then reach out to that customer. You can always gather more details when you are doing your customer follow-up. However, if you provide them with a time-consuming and detailed form to fill out right off the bat, you are giving them far too many opportunities to abandon the lead generation process.

Event Promotion: Whether it is an in-store sale or a seminar, if your web page is promoting this you need to provide important information about the event. You should always lead with the what, when, and where - from there your call to action will vary. For a seminar, everything should lead towards registration (if that is required) at the end of the page once you have them hooked. If it is an in-store sale, you may consider including a Google map showing exactly where your business is located and re-iterate the date and time of the sale.

Informational: If the purpose of specific sections of your website is to provide news or a blog, your call to action should exist to encourage users to read on. When listing the various news/blog entries it is recommended you include the title, an engaging image, and a snippet of content so users know whether what they are seeing is right for them. Visually you should style the heading and hyperlink both the image and the title to the full entry. That way users intuitively know to click to learn more. We practice this concept on our blog listing page. If you find your visual cues aren’t enough for your audience you can also include a “Read More” link below the snippet of content as a more “on the nose” call to action to encourage your visitors to not only read more but stay on your site longer.

There is additional "call to action" options out there that get even more specific. From social sharing to product discovery, to simple form submission (similar to lead generation). If the generalized information listed above hits certain notes but there are elements of your business that are uniquely your own, you may want to consider engaging with a UI/UX Designer to help achieve your goals.

We have years of experience in helping businesses with their online website needs. So if you need some help in this area and don’t quite know where to start you can contact us online or by phone at 1-800-232-3989.

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.

#CallToAction #EventPromotion #LeadGeneration #OnlineSales #UI #UX #WebDevelopment

Using stock photos on your website

Sep

28

When it comes to your website, it is really important that not only is it informational, but that it is visually appealing enough to hold your user’s attention.

A quick way to have a user lose trust not only in your website, but potentially your business, would be to load a bunch of poor quality, outdated, and unprofessional-looking imagery throughout your website. Remember, your website is an extension of your brand.

For users that don’t have the library of photos or budget to hire a photographer, stock photographs are an option.

What are stock photos?

Simply put, stock photos are professionally shot photos that are licensed for use.

Tips for using stock photos

1. Make sure you have read the usage license before using an image
Stock photos have specific licenses in terms of how you can use them. This could include how it is used (web or print), how many times you are allowed to use it, or whether the image requires attribution (essentially a written acknowledgment of where you got the photo form).

Important: NEVER should you simply search Google images and use those on your website. You open yourself up to legal liability if you are using images that you do not own the license for.

2. There is such thing as too many stock photos
Yes, stock photos certainly look slick and can provide a professional look to your website. However, be careful - adding too many stock photos will have your site losing that “personal touch.” Something that many small businesses actively pursue to stand out from the competition.

Remember, you want photos on your website that help represent what your business is all about. When you use stock photos you run the risk of seeing that same photo on somebody else’s website.

3. Sources for stock photos (paid and free)
There are a TON of stock photo websites out there - both free and paid. With paid stock photos you often buy credits and can spend them on photos. Again, always read the usage license before you purchase a photo. Some sites will limit how you use the images you purchase the license for. The benefit of a paid stock photo is you are going to have more variety and you are far less likely to see the same photo creep up on the competition’s website.

On the flip side, free stock photo websites have their own usage license requirements that it is important to pay attention to. Some require attribution on your source material when using images, others do not.

Below are a few stock photo sites both paid and free for your reference.

Shutterstock (paid)

iStockPhoto (paid)

Pexels (free)

Unsplash (free)

StockSnap.io (free)

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.

#Photos #StockPhotos #WebDesign #WebDevelopment #WebsitePhotos

Managing Comments in WordPress

Aug

10

Comments are a great way for your visitors to interact with you. You can build a nice community on your website through your comments. However, you may want to moderate your comments and manage which pages you want visitors to post comments on. Managing comments in WordPress becomes important as Google will index your comments along with your website. So you may want to filter out unwanted comments, spam, and moderate comments not suitable for your topics on your website.

Managing comments in WordPress can be a tedious task. But the alternative of disabling comments may not be ideal either. Comments solicit engagement from your visitors. Even if you are not the one responding to comments, this type of engagement can draw repeat visitors and drive traffic to your website. Having regular posters that are helpful to others can really add value to your website.

You can manage your comments from within WordPress admin. Navigate to Comments on the left menu. You have the ability to approve/unapprove, reply, edit the comment, mark it as spam, or delete it as trash.

If you have comments already filtered out as spam, you can click on the Spam tab above comments. From here you have the ability to mark comments as “Not Spam”, or delete them permanently.

There are detailed settings you can change to help you manage comments further. You will find these settings under Settings > Discussion.

There are two settings that will help you reduce spam comments; Comment author must fill out name and email and Users must be registered and logged in to comment. You should check the boxes and enable these settings.

If you would like to manually approve each comment before they are displayed on your website, be sure to check the box for Comment must be manually approved. With this setting enabled, no comment will automatically appear on your website unless approved.
If you have regular visitors that post helpful comments, you may want them to be able to post and respond freely. Enable the setting Comment author must have a previously approved comment. This means if a visitor already has an approved comment, they will not be required to wait for moderation in sequential posts.

Comments containing lots of hyperlinks are a characteristic of spam comments. You may wish to limit the number of hyperlinks allowed in your comments. Set this setting under Comment Moderation.

WordPress comment moderation link limit setting

You may set your own blacklisted words, IP & email addresses, and browser’s user-agent strings. Perhaps there’s a competitor you don’t wish to have mentioned in your comments. Or you wish to block the numerous pharmaceutical spam that has started to show up on your website. The Comment Moderation setting will put matching comments in your moderation queue. While Disallowed Comment Keys will put matching comments directly into your Trash.

We hope you’ve found this article useful. Well-managed comments can help you unlock the powers of user interaction. It will drive traffic to your website and make your existing content even more valuable. Looking for WordPress hosting? Take advantage of our 60% off promo and start hosting your own WordPress website for as little as $2.90/month. A free domain is included! Need assistance with your website? Contact us, we are always here to help.

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.

#comments #pspinc #webdesign #webdevelopment #websiteseo #wordpress

XML Sitemaps For Your Website

Aug

3

You may ask - what are XML sitemaps? Simply put, it is a specific file that lives “behind the scenes” of your website. This file contains a list of important web pages that help make it easy for Google to find and crawl them. Ensuring your pages are visible by search engines is an important factor to take into consideration with your website’s SEO.

What does an XML sitemap look like?

XML stands for “Extensible Markup Language”, which is another coding language similar to HTML. Below you will see an example of a very simple XML sitemap courtesy of Google Search Central’s build sitemap page.

What pages should be included in your XML sitemap?

Simply put, any web page you want users to find in search results should be included in your XML sitemap. Start with your most relevant pages and work down the chain. It’s worth mentioning if you don’t search engines to crawl a specific page, leaving it out of the sitemap isn’t enough. You need to include a “no index” tag on any page you wish to keep from being indexed.

How to add an XML sitemap to your website

Does the above code look a bit intimidating? Fear not! There are many ways to generate a sitemap without writing a single line of code.

WordPress Plugins: There are many plugins that serve the purpose of generating an XML sitemap for you. One of the most popular is the Yoast SEO plugin. Sitemap generation is just one of many useful tools for optimizing your website for SEO.

Sitemap Generators: If you search online there are tools built to specifically crawl and automatically generate a sitemap for you. This is useful if you are wanting to go with a DIY approach and your site wasn’t build with a CMS tool. The only downside to this method is if you want to be precise on page priority and defining the last modified date, you will need to manually edit the file.

From Scratch: Depending on the size of your site, you may just want to code it by hand. Usually ideal for smaller sites that want to define a specific priority. The larger the site, and those with frequent updates, the more time-consuming this becomes. If you hired a Web Developer to build your website they should be able to take care of this for you.

Have It Done Automatically: You may say, "yah sign me up for this method" and we would be happy to! We have our own CMS system developed in-house and exclusively for our Dreamersi web hosting customers called WebdeXpress. With WebdeXpress, when you publish your site, the sitemap is automatically generated/updated for you, it’s not even something you have to think about.

If you have additional questions or want some help with your website’s SEO, please contact us online or by phone at 1-800-232-3989! We would love to talk with you about your website needs!

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.

#SEO #Sitemap #WebDevelopment #Website #WebsiteSEO #XMLSitemap

Benefits of Business Blogging

Jul

6

A blog is defined by Wikipedia as a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries.

So we know what a blog is, but now the question is - why should you as a business owner blog? There is more than one reason that your business should have a blog. So let's talk about the benefits of business blogging (I love alliteration)!

Make a personal connection with your customers

We are all looking for that edge that sets us apart from our competitors. One thing that we absolutely value at PSPINC is the personal customer support we offer. If you talk with one of our support technicians you will learn their name and be able to contact them easily again in the future.

Blogging is another way to establish that connection. It allows the author to speak in an informal manner to their customers and create a relationship of sorts. If a customer follows your blog, they may be more likely to call and request the blogger by name. Think of it as a way of laying the foundation for future lead generation and sales.

Good for search engine optimization

We’ve talked a lot about search engine optimization in the past because it is so important to get your website seen. Blogging has the potential to be a big part of that for a number of reasons.

Provides fresh content on your website which tells search engines that your site is actively being updated. This encourages search engines to crawl your website more frequently.

Blogging allows you to use keywords that your customers are likely to search to find your website. The more those keywords are organically found on your website through blog content, the more likely it is that a search engine will serve your site to your customers.

Allows you to reach a specific audience with each post. At PSPINC we offer numerous different types of services, from web design to web and mobile application development to technical support. Often each service caters to different types of customers. The keywords one type of customer uses in search engines to find you may be different from another. Blogging allows you to fill the gaps and cast the widest net possible.

An avenue for showcasing your company culture and news

When a customer is deciding whether or not to do business with you, or a potential job candidate is trying to determine if your company is the right fit, the company blog lets them know what you are all about. It’s an invaluable tool to share company culture, latest news, as well as brag a bit about your many accomplishments!

Those are just a few of the many benefits of business blogging. There are many blogging platforms out there that make it really easy to get started. We even have our own platform called Bloguru. Bloguru is totally ad-free, can be embedded on your website, and presents your content to Bloguru’s loyal and established user base to get extra eyes on your content. In fact, the blog you are reading right now was published to Bloguru. Did we mention it is totally free to sign up?

If you have any questions on blogging or need help getting started, please contact us by phone at 1-800-232-3989, by email at contact@pspinc.com, or by our online contact form.

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.

#blog #bloguru #businessblog #customers #pspinc #seo #smallbusiness #techsupport #webdesign #webdevelopment

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol.70 "Password Management"

Jul

1

Vol. 70

How do you keep track of your passwords? I used to store all of my passwords in Numbers (Apple's version of Excel) and protected that document with a password. I kept it on a cloud drive (iCloud) so that I could access it from all my devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone). Many people manage their passwords in the same way, either by putting them in the cloud or by writing them down in a notebook instead of storing them online.

The application or browser you are using usually remembers the password, and the password is entered on its own. This means that if something goes wrong and you need to enter your password, you will most likely have forgotten it. To prevent this, many people use easy-to-remember strings of letters and numbers as passwords, and then use those passwords on multiple sites. So, if your email address and password are exposed on one site, others can use the same combination on many other sites.

All current services created by Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. require that passwords be at least 8 characters long and contain upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. However, in the past, passwords such as 000000 or “password” could have been allowed. Although we promote not using the same password for multiple sites and using complex passwords, it goes without saying that this can be cumbersome for users.

To solve these problems, Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. has been developing a password management service. It is now finally ready for alpha release. It's a system that covers all of the security features available today, and it's currently free for anyone to sign up. If you decide to sign up, please let us know how it works for you. At present, the interface is only available in English, but we hope to add Japanese language support in the beta version.

https://passwizard.com

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://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

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.

#passwizard #password #passwordmanagement #passwordmanager #pspinc #security #webdevelopment

We are the Best Web Design & Development company in Bellevue, WA

Jun

14

We are happy to announce that we have won the Best of Bellevue 2021 in the category of Web Design & Development as reported by the Bellevue Reporter.

A special thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for us!

If you, or somebody you know, needs a website designed or developed - send them to the top company in Bellevue, WA for web development - PSPINC!

Learn about our design and development services

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.

#designer #designsolutions #pspinc #userexperience #ux #webdesign #webdevelopment #website

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol.66 "Selling Your Services Online"

Jun

3

Vol. 66

Does your company sell your products or services online? If your company is in the manufacturing, distribution, or retail sales industry, then you are selling products, and I would like to talk about that another time.

A service business provides services regularly, rather than delivering goods as products. It is also considered a service when the customer comes to the location to receive service. In short, anything that does not involve the delivery of a product is a service.

For example, medical appointments, consulting, maintenance, beauty salon appointments, tutoring, parking lots, lodging, restaurants, and so on. Needless to say, these are things that are not sold on Amazon (although I'm sure Amazon will appear in the future). By integrating them into your website, you can use your site to sell these services.

At Pacific Software Publishing, Inc., we have developed custom reservation systems in the past. Why don't you consider selling your services online using the Internet for your business? Needless to say, all of the hosting services we offer have been developed so that they can be purchased online.

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

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.

#OnlineBooking #OnlineServices #PSPINC #SaaS #WebDesign #WebDevelopment