PSPINC Official Company Blog

The Difference Between Building a Site from Scratch Versus Using a CMS

Jan

31

As of November 2022, there are nearly two billion websites on the internet, according to How to Geek. Before content management systems (CMS) existed, users created sites from scratch, which took a considerable amount of time. But it gave web developers a lot more control over all elements of a website, and that continues to be the case today. But creating websites with a CMS is even more popular today. In fact, more than 84 million websites are built with a CMS. The reason why is simple: it lets anyone create a website easily. Web developers have knowledge of coding languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, among others. With a CMS, users can create websites without the need for a web developer or designer.

While using a CMS can be easier and faster, there are still reasons why some may prefer to build a site from scratch. A CMS will generally offer a free plan, but they’re relatively limited feature- and storage-space-wise unless users upgrade to a paid account. Building a website without one gives developers more control over the hosting environment, giving them more freedom to add unique features to their site. Templates featured on a CMS are attractive, but it also results in multiple sites with the same or very similar site designs. Starting from scratch results in a much more unique site design as well as the ability to add other features that may not be available through a CMS.

Building a Website from Scratch

To create a website from scratch:

Add text, images, navigation bars, and other site building blocks with HTML

Add styling elements with CSS to design your site. A business site should match the look and feel of your brand.

Add more advanced functionality to your site by writing some JavaScript.

Upload the HTML file to your server to be filed away in your database.

From there, you can update the content or make other changes by downloading the files from the server and changing the HTML code by hand. Then upload the files back to the server after checking to make sure the code changes you made don’t result in an unexpected or undesirable result, like breaking a link.

Building a Website with a CMS

A CMS, or content management system, allows users to create, edit, and publish content online without any coding knowledge or experience. To build a site using a CMS:

Create an account on a CMS platform. We recommend WordPress or WebdeXpress, which is free with our Dreamersi web hosting.

Open the content editor to create and edit the content on your site. Without needing to write out any code, you can bold text, add links, and insert images among other things by dragging and dropping blocks or clicking a few buttons.

When you’re done creating or editing content, click on the Publish button and the CMS will display it for your website visitors.

To customize your website even further with unique features or design elements, invest in custom development or custom design services. For more informational videos, check out our "What Is" series on our YouTube channel.

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 #business #businesstips #businesstools #cms #contentmanagementsystem #dreamersi #hosting #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #websites #webtools #wordpress

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 152 “Customer Feedback”

Jan

26

While making sales and converting leads is important in business, it’s also important to know how your customers feel about your overall company and your products. Getting their overall feedback will help you figure out what the best aspects of your products are. And it’ll give you a good idea of what you could improve. If there are features that really hinder your product or service, customers won’t want to buy the product. Or they’ll return it not long after purchasing it. So, knowing where you can improve will result in a better overall product.

There are various ways you can gather your customer’s feedback. While it’s easier to just ask for a review, many people aren’t willing to write out their thoughts. Instead, companies usually ask customers to rank products based on the number of stars they’re willing to give, or the number they give from one to five, or one to ten. But we personally love using faces as a scale with our customer feedback system, Opinion Stand. It’s quick, easy, and much more expressive than a star or number. Sign up to get started.

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 #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #marketingtips #newsletter #opinionstand #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #technology #webtools

Social Media Marketing: Paid Versus Organic

Jan

24

Over the last few years, research found that people spend even more time on social media now than in the past, making your business’s potential audience even larger. And it makes it more likely that they’ll convert as well. However, social platforms’ algorithms are constantly changing, and many now make it hard for brands to increase their exposure through organic methods. As an example, Hootsuite reported that an organic post on a Facebook page gets an average reach of 5.2% in 2021.

But despite organic social’s decline in reach, it still has its place in an effective marketing strategy. While paid efforts will help reach more people, organic social helps establish your brand’s overall reputation and can be a way to connect with your audience. It also is a great way to test content to see which ones are more effective before using them for a paid campaign. So, it’s important to employ paid and organic social efforts to get the most out of social media marketing.

Why Your Business Needs Both

Women typing on the notebook laptop open to Facebook

While reach can be fairly limited, organic social media marketing can still give businesses a good idea of who their audience is and what they’re interested in. Plus, it’s great for businesses that are just starting and may not have funds to pay for advertising. Through organic social posts, you can build out your community and demonstrate your brand values and tell your brand story, which will reach the growing number of customers who prioritize buying from companies whose values align with their own. It may not directly lead to sales, but it will help establish trust and transparency. And it’s a good opportunity to see how effective different kinds of content perform.

Paid social ads, however, will help immensely in increasing the overall reach of your marketing campaigns. With how algorithms on social media work today, businesses can’t rely on organic efforts alone to market their products. Paid social ads, unlike organic posts, can break through the algorithm to be seen by more users that probably wouldn’t discover them otherwise. But other than increasing visibility, paid social ads also allow brands to target their audience to reach the right customer at the right time. With the increase in online shopping, it makes it even easier for brands to integrate ads into users’ timelines without disrupting a user’s overall experience. Paid social ads can also further enforce the messaging and values your organic social posts release. you can even convert your best-performing promotional organic content into a paid social ad, increasing the likelihood that they’ll perform well. So, employing both organic and paid social media efforts will let you take advantage of everything social media marketing has to offer.

If your business needs any digital marketing help, our team is standing by to help you increase your business’s visibility online.

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.

#ads #advertising #blog #business #businesstips #digitalmarketing #facebook #instagram #linkedin #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #organicsocialmedia #paidads #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #twitter #web

Announcement: Mail Server Update

Jan

23

Dear valued customers,

Thank you for choosing Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

We are always looking to improve the services we offer you.
As such, we will be conducting mail server update.

You may experience delay in sending emails for a few seconds during the time below.

The schedule is as follows:

* USA Pacific Daylight Time
- January 24th (Tue) 9:00 - 9:30am

* Japan Time
- January 25th (Wed) 2:00 - 2:30am

PSPINC provides services with uptimes of 99.9%

If you have any questions, please contact us at 1-800-232-3989 or email us at support@pspinc.com .

We would like to answer your questions by phone call.

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.

#Announcement #Mail #PSPINC #Update

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 151 “Email File Size Limits”

Jan

19

One of the most frustrating parts of email is when you click send, and it tells you your file attachment is too big. Emails limit file sizes mainly for security reasons. Email file size limits prevent users from bombarding the server with large emails. And that would cause it to stop working altogether. But from a business perspective, it also allows companies to create free and paid tiers with different prices and size limits. Generally, the more a customer pays, the more space they get.

To solve this problem, users usually attach the file as a link, a feature many major email clients like Gmail offer. But it creates an extra step where users view the file online, sometimes as a different file type, rather than just opening it. And depending on the file type, viewing it in a browser may undesirably alter the format. That’s why we created MegaMail, which lets users send or transfer large files to anyone. The best part is that it won’t change the file type and you can even add a password to the file, which would only allow those with a password to access it. Sign up for MegaMail to get started.

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 #business #businesstips #businesstools #cybersecurity #email #emailhosting #marketingtips #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #security #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webtools

Tap-To-Call: FaceTime Feature Now Available!

Jan

17

Starting today, you can now FaceTime with a tap of a button with Tap-To-Call! We’ve updated the iOS app to fix a few bugs pertaining to our Japanese language support and added a new FaceTime feature. Designed to help less tech-savvy users, calling has never been easier with Tap-To-Call. Just register with your name and phone number, add your favorite contacts and tap on their name to call. It’s that easy! Now with FaceTime capabilities!

Download Tap-To-Call today in the App Store for the ultra-low price of $0.99.

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.

#app #apple #apprelease #appstore #blog #business #ios #iosapp #iphone #iphoneapp #mobile #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #smallbusiness #taptocall #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #website

Why Your Images Need to be Optimized for the Web

Jan

17

One of the most important aspects of Google’s algorithm when showing websites is page loading speed. Users today won’t wait more than two seconds for a site to load before moving on to another if it’s not fast enough. So, if you want your site to show up higher in Google’s organic search results, you should prioritize making sure the images you add to your website are well-optimized.

Lossy Versus Lossless Image Compression

Turned on Screen Silver Macbook Air on Wooden Desk

When creating or even saving images, the image size will be relatively larger, and larger image files inadvertently slow down your site. So, the best solution is to compress those image files. But there are two ways to compress data in relation to images: lossy and lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces some of the information in an image to reduce the file size while maintaining as much of the image quality as possible (Ex: JPEG image types). Lossless compression reduces the image file size without compromising the image’s overall quality (Ex: PNG image types).

When comparing the two image compression types, it might seem obvious to just use PNGs or lossless compressions, but it’s important to remember that PNGs are larger file sizes when compared to JPEGs. So, even if you compress all the images on your site to PNG images, you might still be slowing your site down more than you need to. While you may want to keep some of those images as PNG image types, you can, more than likely, reduce your image file sizes even further to speed up your site’s overall loading speeds.

How to Optimize Your Images for the Web

What Types of Image Files to Use

JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group, image files are best used on images shot with a camera because JPEGs can combine some of those millions of colors by using lossy compression. While it reduces an image’s overall color palette, it’ll still produce an acceptable image for the web.

PNG, or Portable Network Graphics, image files are generally recommended for images that utilize a limited number of colors. PNGs are also great for images with transparent backgrounds, so they’re generally used for logo and icon images.

SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, image files, like the name suggests, allow developers to use vector-based images. SVG image files, unlike PNGs and JPEGs, won’t lose any clarity when resizing them. While this file type works great for images that don’t use a lot of colors, they’re generally just used site logos or backgrounds. We should also mention that some older browsers don’t support SVGs. But all the latest versions of major browsers have basic SVG support.

WebP, or Web Picture format, image files were created by Google in 2010 to provide superior lossless and lossy compression. They’re much smaller file sizes compared to the rest, but there’s one catch: Safari doesn’t fully support this file type, which means some iPhone users may not be able to view them.

For more informational videos, check out our "What Is" series on our YouTube channel.

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 #business #businesstips #image #images #imagetype #jpg #photoshop #picture #pictures #png #seo #smallbusiness #svg #tech #technology #tutorial #web #webdesign #webp #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 150 “The Restaurant Industry”

Jan

12

The restaurant industry today has changed drastically due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For a while, restaurants only offered delivery and takeout options. For restaurants that didn’t try to do either, they simply didn’t make it. Putting together a digital menu and adding ordering capabilities can be a long and expensive process for a small business. But making sure potential customers know what a restaurant offers is an important step in the customer journey for restaurants. After all, people won’t buy from your restaurant if they don’t know what you’re selling.

People can always call in to ask, but most people aren’t willing to do that. Especially after seeing your competitors. The pandemic changed the dine-in experience as well. Physical menus, while they still exist, aren’t utilized as much anymore. Instead, many restaurants place a QR code menu on the tables where users can scan in with their camera phones to see the menu. It provides customers with a much more sanitary and convenient experience. For restaurant owners, it also helps cut down servers’ workload, as they’re able to turn over tables faster. With ImaMenu, you can create digital menus for free and easily update menu items based on rotating specials and/or availability. Sign up for free to get started.

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.

The term "QR Code" is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #digitalmenu #imamenu #marketingdigital #menu #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #qr #qrcode #qrcodemenu #restaurant #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #web #website #webtools

Why Your Website Needs an SSL Certificate

Jan

10

If you don't already know, SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and protects your privacy when you surf the internet. Especially when you're entering sensitive data. So, if you’re shopping online, an SSL certificate is designed to protect you from hackers getting your credit card number as you’re entering your payment information. SSL certificates do this in a matter of milliseconds in a process that’s sometimes referred to as an SSL handshake.

The process consists of a browser asking for a site to identify itself only for the site to send back a copy of the SSL certificate. After confirming that the site is trustworthy, only then can the server start sharing encrypted data with the website. To check if a website has an SSL certificate and will therefore protect your sensitive data, just check the URL for “HTTPS” at the start of the link. For sites that don’t have an SSL certificate, you’ll see a red padlock symbol or a warning triangle, signaling that this site isn’t safe for you to use.

Different Types of SSL Certificates

Extended validation (EV SSL) certificates: the most secure, but also the most expensive certificate typically reserved for high-profile websites that collect data and payment information.

Organization validation (OV SSL) certificates: similar to EV SSL certificates, but cheaper and less secure. These are generally used for commercial or public-facing websites to ensure customer information will remain confidential.

Domain validation (DV SSL) certificates: the cheapest certificate choice with minimal encryption, which results in a simplified validation process. Despite its low-security assurance, they’re still used largely for blogs and information sites, which don’t require users’ private information.

How to Get an SSL Certificate

Most web hosting services offer SSL certificates in addition to their web hosting, much like PSPINC. We offer all three types of SSL certificates and make them available for purchase in addition to our web hosting or our VPS plans on our website.

For more informational videos, check out our "What Is" series on our YouTube channel.

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 #business #businesstips #businesstools #cybersecurity #domainvalidation #dvssl #evssl #extendedvalidation #hosting #organizationvalidation #ovssl #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 149 “Serving Our Japanese Customers”

Jan

5

When PSPINC first started, our vision was to help grow the Japanese market by popularizing PC software, which was already established technology in the U.S. We eventually shifted our focus to creating our own software, and later expanded to other digital products. And we wanted to especially target small businesses, and we still do this today.

Despite diversifying our products and services, we continue to serve our Japanese audience. It’s why users can view our website in Japanese. So, it’s only natural that we want to help other small businesses do the same with our localization services. Since we translate everything from our blog content to our social media content to Japanese, we have no problem doing the same for other small businesses. Our past experience of localizing and licensing software between the U.S and Japan only strengthens our expertise.

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.