driveby, Author at Drive By Websites Ltd.

Is Someone Reading Your Gmail Emails?

6th July 2018 by driveby

Unfortunately, most businesses are unaware they may have unknowingly compromised their customers data (and their own). Believe it or not, all of your Gmail messages could be read human third parties. Furthermore, they could be moved, deleted or even sent!

Following the Facebook data controversy, Google has now confirmed that your private emails on the Gmail system can potentially be read by third parties. The third parties are given permission using app access or plugins for the gmail console. People who have used gmail to create accounts or manage apps are at risk of their emails being read by those companies.

Securing Your Emails

It’s important to note, nothing illegal is happening. Permission is given by users without attention given to the small print. It’s a very common problem that’s being exposed more every day. With 1.4 billion users on gmail it’s likely that this story will unfold further as more people become aware of the risks.

Here’s what you need to do:

Never allow any apps access to read, send, delete and manage your email.
Use the Security Check-up tool to assess and secure your account: https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup/3

We host emails for many of our clients. If you’re currently using Gmail but would prefer a safer local solution, we would be happy to help. We protect your data at the same high standard that we secure our own. Contact us for more information.

Lincolnshire Hosting – Safety and Security

3rd July 2018 by driveby

Our Lincolnshire hosting service is something we are very proud of. A large proportion of our client base is hosted after we have undertaken their initial website development. However, we also offer a full transfer to our servers along with one year of hosting and support for clients that just need a fresh host.

Website Hosting Transfers in Lincolnshire

Many hosting transfers require some work beyond just moving the website. For a start, we have to do a full security check. Even when we don’t find a threat we still have to implement our high standard of protection to new websites before we can fully integrate them. Ongoing, we also have to ensure system updates are made as fast as possible. One of the main reasons that people transfer their websites to us is because their site has been unsupported, leading to missing updates and patches. We regularly set up auto-updates on new websites to ensure this is resolved immediately.

Content Updates

Content updates are another common service required by new clients. This is often because they have been ignored by their last host or not given sufficient training. These updates managed as support, included in our standard hosting and support package.

Fast and Stable Hosting

Speed and stability is another issue. Our hosting is built on FreeBSD, widely regarded as one of the most stable and high performance operating systems of the whole Unix lineage. If you’re interested in how this compares with other industry systems we’ve created some comparisons on our hosting page.

Loyal, Local and Trusted

We don’t reserve extra space and limit your website potential. We provide a powerful, fully managed service for all of our customers. If you are interested in hearing more about how we can help you with hosting, please feel free to call us on 01775 761512.

Drive By Websites Ltd is based in Spalding, Lincolnshire. We work with clients all over the county including in Holbeach, Bourne, Grantham, Stamford, Boston, Long Sutton, Lincoln and Sleaford.

Live Chat – Website Design Features

11th June 2018 by driveby

We’ve been working on a lot of ‘Live Chat’ plug-ins on recent website development projects, but benefits are not often considered for most businesses. We’ve written out a summary of what this interesting new trend actually offers to your business.

User Preference

Research has found that customers respond very positively to the idea of a live chat over a contact form on a website. In many cases, this research also includes a preference for live chat over telephone or general emails.

Time Management

Despite being the priority business contact point, the traditional phone call is comparatively inefficient. Using a phone, how many users can one employee be dealing with at one time? Certainly not as many as during a live chat. An employee could productively engage with far more people at one time.

Competitive Edge

How fast can your competitors respond to an email enquiry? Probably not anywhere near as fast as during a live chat. Even if your competitors respond in minutes, what’s the incentive for the customer to sit and wait? For all they know it could be hours or days before they get a response. In the case of the live chat, customers will patiently await your response.

Live chat boxes are not for everyone, but it may suit you better than you realise.

Did you know that you don’t need to sit and wait at your computer? You can manage it all from your mobile by receiving convenient notifications.

Did you also know that you don’t have to literally respond to every request? You can have an automated response for common questions and even have customers leave their questions for you to respond to later by email or telephone.

Give us a call on 01775 761512 or email [email protected] to see how we can help you with your website design features.

The Problems with Freelance Web Designers and One Man Bands

4th June 2018 by driveby

New clients in areas such as Spalding, Holbeach, Peterborough or Boston always come with new stories. Unfortunately, they often sounds quite familiar. Many clients have already worked with a developer before, a freelancer. Perhaps having even worked with a developer they were originally very happy with. In the end, there’s a number of problems that inevitably arise. We’ve tried to narrow it down to just a few:

Poor Quality Work – It’s hardly a surprise that scarcely qualified developers working in their spare time aren’t able to meet the same quality expectations of many potential clients. It’s very often what’s happening behind the scenes that reveals this. For example, one of our new clients had found that their beautifully designed website was not hitting the rankings as they had hoped. After we had moved it onto one of our servers, we quickly discovered that this is because the website was clearly rushed together in the shortest possible time. Often, all of the developer’s effort goes in to the look of the website. This is likely because they are not specialists in the field, but enthusiasts.
Missing Deadlines – Other commitments are a big problem with freelancers and one man band website designers. One might wonder why an expert would not start establish a company on the back of a good reputation. This rarely happens because they are committed to other companies or even entirely different jobs. There are exceptions of course, but in general this tendency of missing deadlines is very common. In the experience of many of our clients, these individuals undercut the competition and start with overwhelming enthusiasm but that rapidly becomes irrelevant as soon as another commitment comes along. Specifically consider the need to upgrade or update a quality website in order to achieve the best possible results, even if the developer does publish the website on time.
The Freelancer Disappears – Yes, this is a horror story you’ve probably heard before. This is commonly known because it is so frequent. The lack of commitment and often poor reputation mean a one man band can do even better by leaving the area without saying a word. This can leave your business in a VERY tricky situation, especially if your website is not yet finished. Now suppose the developer is still very keen and wants to continue to support your business long term, it’s still not what you had bargained for. You can’t drop in or get a quick response, you’re just locked in to a very fragile arrangement.

Exceptions exist and we are confident that you’ll make decisions that are right for your business, but keep the above problems in mind if you’re considering a freelance website developer. If you’re looking to move your website to a local company with a commitment to every client then we would be very happy to help.

Reviews on Google – Better Local Website Rankings in Spalding

4th June 201825th May 2018 by driveby

We've had a busy year here. We have been working with a lot of new clients and helping to maintain older ones. If you're an existing client that has not been in touch for a while then don't forget your hosting includes support! We're here to help and still want to make sure you're getting the best value for money.

We realised recently that despite encouraging all of our clients to get reviews left on their Google+ Pages or followers on their social media, we have long neglected to ask our clients - old and new - to do the same.

We would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on our Google business page:

Click here to leave a review

We're planning to leave a review on all of our clients that would like us to as well so please let us know if you would rather this was not done.

Please don't forget that we also provide regular content and service updates on our social media and blog.

Our latest informative blog updates are below:

UK Website Design Using Cryptocurrencies

How does a Page Builder stack up to a Web Developer?

Social Media Marketing in Spalding

Facebook Is Changing – Is Your Website?

Developing the Website of the Future

UK Website Design Using Cryptocurrencies

21st May 2018 by driveby

Drive By Websites Ltd is a strong believer that virtual currency payments are the future. The growing trend of Cryptocurrency payments in the UK is just the beginning. We are keen to work with clients on Websites that adopt these capabilities ahead of their competition.

The future of web development is something we often debate in our efforts to ensure that our clients are getting the most ‘future-proof’ development possible. We’ll be the first to admit that many of our clients don’t yet NEED Cryptocurrency payments. But that’s doesn’t mean these services are not immensely valuable to the right businesses. Before virtual currencies are adopted in mainstream society they are very likely to first dominate the web. This is something that businesses can both encourage and be prepared for.

The benefits include cheaper transactions, lower risk, less regulation and getting noticed. We primarily recommend using the most trusted options, such as Bitcoin or Litecoin. However, we can provide a growing number of other currency integrations as well.

New Cryptocurrency Integration Page Launched

If you’re interested in finding out more, we’ve just launched a new page on our website, ‘Cryptocurrency Payments in Website Design‘. We hope this page answers some of your questions about how blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies can enhance your business.

Cryptocurrency Ecommerce Quotes

For a quote or to find out what else we can offer, give us a call on 01775 761512. We offer a fantastic price for new websites that integrate Cryptocurrency payment options.

How does a Page Builder stack up to a Web Developer?

10th May 2018 by driveby

Almost all our clients come to us knowing exactly what they are looking for. Generally, it’s something like this:

They want someone to build a website
They want someone they know and can trust to build a website
They want to be able to drop in and see their chosen web developers when it suits them
They want something bespoke for their business, and not a generic template
They want to be able to discuss web development options and choose what’s right for them
They want the development to continue for years to come and not stop once the website is live

All our clients fit into this list somewhere, but there continues to be new customers that need to be convinced of these benefits first. We don’t push our services on anyone and often I’ll just direct people to where to research the benefits of real web development over a cheap page builder. In some cases, I’ll even recommend that they use a page builder at first and come back to Drive By Websites once they have outgrown it. These cheap page builders on Wix, Godaddy or 123-Reg have their benefits. They’re easy to work on and they aren’t much on the pocket either. But that’s as much as you can expect, the benefits end there.

Website Builder (cheap/free) vs Drive By Websites In Spalding

Our services include optimising websites. From as early as the initial design stage we’re implementing ideas and trying to focus on SEO strategies to enhance the potential reach of the site. Further still, we implement the tools to allow our clients to take SEO into their own hands. Now, there is some training and a learning curve involved but we aren’t working by the hour and we’ll take as much time as it takes to get our clients geared up to make continuous improvements to their websites.

We also put all our website design costs up front. This is where the page builders have gained a very bad reputation. Suppose you’ve got a nice simple website to get you going, you then want to go live. Already you’ll incur costs as they want to throw in a domain cost and a connection cost. Then you’ll find it’s not high enough in Google, so they offer you an SSL certificate for even more cost. Over time these issues will arise and leave you wondering why you had started with the page builder in the first place. It is likely still cheaper in the end, but you’ll certainly not be trusting your host like you should.

The main issue, above all else, is these page builders are missing all the fundamentals named at the top of the page. All the priorities for almost all our clients are missing from the page builder offering. I would still go as far as to say it’s just scratching the surface because the technical advantages of our systems over these page builders are endless. Nonetheless, that isn’t often what matters most for our clients.

For more information on what we offer or the technical benefits of our systems, give us a call on 01775 761512.