Thursday, 29 January 2015
Recaptcha for Build111 and Church111 Forms
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Having robots fill in your form fields and submit form spam with no benefit to you can be extremely annoying and waste your time as you delete unwanted messages. We have a built in captcha that you can use to discourage bots from filling in your forms, but we have now added another option. If you would like to add a Google Recaptcha account to your Build111 or Church111 forms, this option is now available through a simple interface in the admin area. This will make it harder for bots to submit forms and cause you trouble, but the down side is that it also makes it a bit harder for some humans as well.

To enable Google's Recaptcha, go into the admin section, then into forms management, then at the bottom of the screen, there is a space for their Recaptcha account info. If you click the little help icon "?" it will explain how to get your Public & Private Key pair to set this up. Then once you save that info, the new captcha will appear on the forms.

If you have any questions about this or other great features of the Build111 or Church111 Website builders, please contact 111 Web Studio online or call 877.397.7605.

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Posted on 01/29/2015 9:51 AM by Customer Service
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Tuesday, 20 January 2015
A Mobile Friendly Website is Essential
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If you are serious about visitors being able to see your website and about being found on search engines today, your site must be mobile ready. For example, the images to the right show the same website as seen from a desktop browser and from a phone.

Responsive design provides for the ability of your site to "respond" to the screen size of the visitor. Depending on screen width, elements of the site can move around to facilitate scrolling on a mobile device and menu buttons can be made to be finger friendly instead of being designed for mouse clicks. In response to a recent 111 Web Studio blog post on SEO, our friend Ted Hogan at Truck Driver Institute writes:

"...over the last year our website received only 41% of its traffic from desktop or laptop computers -- 59% of our traffic came from smartphones and tablets, and it is growing by double digits month over month. The percentage of our traffic from Google Adwords paid advertising skews even more heavily toward smartphone users."

We see the same trends in our statistics. Phones and tablets have long had the ability to surf the web, but bandwidth speeds and mobile browser capabilities made the experience cumbersome. It was often more productive to wait until you got to your desk before visiting a website. Today's mobile devices have enough bandwidth to change that experience. They are fast and easy to use. Today's web sites are specifically designed to look and work properly on these devices. As more and more sites use responsive and mobile friendly design, more people will use their mobile platforms to do work and make decisions faster. No longer is there a need to wait until you get to a desktop to surf the web.,

If you haven't already made your website mobile friendly and would like to take the plunge into responsive design, give us a call at 877.397.7605 or contact 111 Web Studio for more information.

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Posted on 01/20/2015 9:42 AM by Customer Service
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Thursday, 15 January 2015
Home Routers Left Wide Open
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admin:admin is Not Good Enough!

Low end home routers come with default passwords that many users don't bother to change. As you might guess some clever hackers have written malware that searches the net looking for them.,When found, these routers are infected with software that is used to perform DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks for a fee. If this doesn't seem like it should be much of a problem for you personally, think about the fact that one such outfit recently bragged that they have 250-500,000 routers infected and have performed over 17,000 DDoS attacks.

Yes, that's right. People pay bad guys to perform DDoS attacks on someone they don't like. For the uninitiated, a DDoS is an attack on a single web site or web service from multiple places at the same time. This flood of traffic effectively takes the site or service off-line and makes it unavailable to legitimate visitors, and it could happen to you.

If you have a home router, be sure your password is strong. In fact, as we have written here many times, all your passwords should be strong. The bad guys can pound away at your various logins all night long until they successfully break in. Your only defense is a strong password.

If you need a website that is secure and looks great, give 111 Web Studio a call at 877.397.7605 or contact us for more information.

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Posted on 01/15/2015 9:50 AM by Customer Service
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Tuesday, 13 January 2015
Start the New Year with a New Website!
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Happy New Year! It's that time once again to see if you need to dust off the old web site and give it a new coat of polish. Check out the 111 Web Studio portfolio for ideas.

People make decisions about you when they visit your site whether you want them to or not. Maybe they got referred by a friend or client and the potential new customer decides to check you out on the web before making that call. What they see may encourage them to pick up the phone... or maybe not.,

When deciding whether or not it's time for a new custom web design, think about a few important considerations.

Curb Appeal

Just like in person, you don't get a second chance for a first impression. If the site doesn't tell the visitor at a glance that you are professional and serious about what you do, your ability to convince them to contact you just became an uphill battle... and that's if they even stay around to look a bit deeper.

Mobile Ready

Recent reports show that depending on your industry, between a third to over half your traffic is likely coming from mobile devices. If your site isn't mobile ready, there's no decision. Give us a call immediately. It's past time for a face lift.

Easy Navigation

If you visitor can't immediately see where to go to get what they want, you'll likely lose them before they even get started. Use plain, clear language for your buttons and avoid trade-names or lingo. Try to keep your content no more than one level deep in the navigation if at all possible. And put the buttons where people naturally find them.

Calls to Action

Be sure the visitors know what you want them to do. Whether it's make a call, fill out a form, download a document or watch a video, it needs to be clear and immediately apparent.

If you're ready to think about a new design, give us a call at 877.397.7605 or check out our web design portfolio for some ideas and more information. There is no cost for a consultation and you will be surprised at how much value you can add to your site for a reasonable price.

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Posted on 01/13/2015 9:36 AM by Customer Service
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Thursday, 8 January 2015
Yellow Pages? What's That?
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When 111 Web Studio started in the web business in 1995, if a business didn't have their company listed in the yellow pages, there was really no other way for a local person to find it. They were just invisible. As we all recognize, little by little the yellow pages have become less and less used and search engines have taken over. The last time we got a call from someone who said they found us in the yellow pages was about four years ago and that was from a couple of old guys who had an ancient copy of the book sitting around on a shelf. Today, if you ask a young person about it, you get one of those blank stares like you'd get if you asked a waitress for a cigarette (Yeah, you used to be able to do that). 

So if you can't be found in the yellow pages, where should a small business invest their marketing dollars to be found by people who know they are probably out there, but don't know their exact company? There are basically two choices for online marketing. One is pay per click and the other is organic search.

Pay per click is an easy way to get a quick boost on search engines, but it does cost money to play. In fact, depending on your particular key words, it can cost a lot of money. And when you stop paying, you stop getting the benefit of your financial investment. Organic SEO, on the other hand, is the gift that keeps on giving. If you read all the articles we have written in this blog about SEO and Online Marketing and implement all the things we talk about, your website will start climbing the search results ladder and keep on going. When the search engines recognize that you are the right answer to a particular question, they will present you to those who ask that question. It's that simple. The reason is that if they give searchers the right answer every time, those searchers come back and the search engine owns their eyeballs. That's how they make their money, by owning eyeballs. So even if the yellow pages are dead, your business doesn't have to be invisible. The money you used to invest in "the book" can now be spent much more wisely.

If you need help with getting found on search engines or if you need a great website so people will respect you once they find your site, give us a call at 877.397.7605 or contact 111 Web Studio for more information.

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Posted on 01/08/2015 9:58 AM by Customer Service
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Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Start 2015 off right with our Custom Website Design Promotion...
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Have you had the same tired look for years? Are your competitors outshining you online?

The New Year is here and it's a great time to refresh your online presence with a fresh, new, mobile friendly, custom web design! So much business is won and lost on website functionality and design. It's too important to ignore. We want all our clients to excel in their market. So to get 2015 started with a bang, we are offering up to 6 Months Free Hosting to any new design in January (See conditions below*). Let's make a splash this year and start off with a new design and look!

Get Your New Custom Website Now


CUSTOM DESIGN PORTFOLIO


Since 1995 we have designed, hosted and programmed advanced functionality for websites for all sizes of clients from individuals to Fortune 500 companies to our own United States Army. Our work has touched most if not all reputable industries from artists and public speakers to churches and ceramics companies. See Our Portfolio and let us know how we can help improve your online presence. Contact Us

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Posted on 01/07/2015 1:59 PM by Mark McGowan
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Tuesday, 6 January 2015
Do the New Dot Word Domains Get Better SEO?
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Some folks are getting excited about the new dot word domains like .hotel because they imagine they will get better search results with them. At this point, we are told this is indeed their imagination. While some initial evidence has made some researchers speculate whether the new dot word TLDs might do better than others, Google says no. It's more likely the results of those analyses are just an aberration caused by too small a sample size in the research or ignoring other factors like good online marketing and content. Google's John Mueller recently wrote on the subject again to restate that there is no inherent ranking advantage to using the new TLDs

It is true that you may get a little boost if your domain name is related to your key words. However, this is not something your should worry about if you don't have it. Having content that is related to your keywords is so much more powerful, that it overwhelms the importance of your domain name. It's also true that brand new domains don't do as well as those that have been around for a while, so switching to a new TLD would hurt more than help, certainly initially. And having more than one domain pointing to your site isn't a good idea either. When you have multiple domains pointing to the same place, your content is diluted because it can be seen as duplicate which is negative for good SEO.

The bottom line is that as in most things in life, there is no magic bullet that lets you bypass hard work. All these small factors are really insignificant when compared to the power of syndicating your unique, relevant content to establish yourself as the thought leader or subject matter expert in your field that you really are. That's where the most bang for your buck is gained. Good old honest SEO will always prevail, so as usual, don't go running around like your hair is on fire about the next new, new thing. Stay calm. Slow and steady wins this race.

If your business needs to be found on search engines and you need assistance with SEO and search marketing, give us a call at 877.397.7605 or contact us at 111 Web Studio for more information.

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Posted on 01/06/2015 9:59 AM by Customer Service
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