blog Archives - Page 2 of 10 - Drive By Websites Ltd.

Startup Website – Things To Consider

22nd November 2017 by driveby

If you’re currently considering a new business start up or are looking for a new startup website, we have outlined a few considerations.

Domain Name Significance. If you have to introduce your startup into competitive online search results, you’ll need every small advantage. Using a domain name that relates directly to your ideal search keyword can do exactly that. For example – instead of just using a company name – try to include things such as the main service or location.
Jumping the Queue. Website videos are a great way to cut through the search results on your startup website. Unlike organic google website rankings, they’re often listed instantly! Google and Youtube are both linked in a way that other video platforms are not. This leads to much more attractive Google listings. Many would be tempted to watch a video in search results over web links because the listing features a thumbnail image from the video. Click here to read more about website videos.
Google Maps. Configuring a pin on Google Maps with a link to your startup website will massively improve your ranking and can get you on the first page. Localised searching also means that people can stumble on your business map without even having entered a location in their search!
Blogging. Perhaps the most important considerations long term is blogging. If you start now, you’ll see the results a lot quicker. Blogging is undoubtedly a chore but it comes at only the cost of spare time and the results are unparalleled. Continuous fresh content will mean Google needs to regularly index your site. It is also used when Google decides how to rank your website. Click here to read more about website blogs.
Future Proof Hosting. While we do try to pride ourselves on our nonsense services, this jargon is worth a read. Future proof hosting refers to servers that are continually being kept updated with new and innovative performance and security enhancements. Our UK hosting service offers excellent security, speed, safety and support. This is mainly because we run FreeBSD systems, generally considered to be one of – if not – the most stable and high performance operating systems. Click here to see how other hosting server operating systems stack up. Can your startup afford to find that your website has run out of bandwidth, or isn’t functioning as expected? All too often new businesses find themselves in similar situations. A good startup website needs to be prepared for what’s to come as your business expands.

Need help with your new business startup website?

If you would like more information or a quote to get set up with a new business startup website, give us a call on 01775 761512.

What Are the Benefits of a Blog?

28th June 2017 by driveby

Continuous fresh content will mean Google needs to regularly index your site and is also a consideration when Google decides how to rank your website in search results. If your website doesn’t contain a lot of content, or any fresh content, a blog would be the perfect way to achieve this while also target specific keywords.

While it isn’t easy to commit to a blog, keep in mind that it may only be a weekly or biweekly update that is all you need to start increasing visitors. If don’t know where to start, try creating a list of different content opportunities. We regularly suggest using testimonials as blog posts, as they usually contain excellent keywords but also don’t require any writing time for the blogger. You can also use events, industry news and business changes.

How does this bring a return in visitors? As well as ranking new pages into Google, a good blog psot can also receive social media shares and links from other websites. All of this will also increases your ‘Domain Authority’, where Google considers your site a higher authority than your competition.

If you would like more information or a quote to get set up with a blog, or for us to blog for you, give us a call on 01775 761512.

Ransomware – What You Need To Know

15th May 2017 by driveby

By now, you will likely be hearing a lot about ‘Ransomware’. Here’s what you need to know:

Ransomware is a cyber-attack that results in payment demands in return for access to your data. The malicious software (often included in an email) encrypts your information. They then threaten to block access to the files until a ransom is paid. The cost commonly ranges from £400 to £1,500 in bitcoin. These attacks are mostly waged against businesses, for obvious reasons

Back up your files to ensure you don’t lose any data.
Don’t open suspicious emails, websites or mobile apps. Hackers use these to transfer malicious software onto your computer or device.
Get antivirus protection. Antivirus programs can stop ransomware from being downloaded onto computers by scanning files for ransomware before downloading and scanning existing files.
Install updates/Auto update. programs are often updated to fix vulnerabilities that have been exploited to install malicious software. It is best practice to always download the newest version of your software as soon as you can, or enable an auto-update function.

Google’s been busy. Has your hosting provider?

1st May 2017 by driveby

Google has been busy in the last year with:

1,653 new search changes
9,800 live traffic experiments
18,015 side-by-side experiments
130,336 search quality tests

What we don’t know is how many of those 1,653 new search changes are algorithmic or ranking changes. Those would be the changes that impact you and your business. There is believed to be over 200 ranking factors working to compare your site with your competitors. When changes are made to these many factors, webmasters are rarely quick to act. In fact, nearly all of the clients that move their website to our hosting servers are out of date in some form.

While you are keeping your content fresh and relevant, we are working all the time on making the most of that content. Upgrades to our systems take place on a weekly basis and allow your site to remain as relevant in two years as it was the day it went live.

Contact us regarding website transfers for a free quote and helpful advice.

You NEED This App: Super easy site updates from phones and tablets

9th January 2017 by driveby

You’ve undoubtedly heard us say it a million times, “You MUST keep your website up to date”. It’s rule number one for gaining and maintaining a quality space in the Google search engine.

Even with the opportunity to update your website, we know that after a few busy weeks or even a holiday away, it’s not always easy to get back online and refreshing your content. But it should be a priority. We are periodically faced with this challenge, and with Christmas and New Year wrapped up we felt it was time we put forward an alternative.

Picture your website was as simple as Facebook – type in some text, attach an image and hit publish – would you update your website more?

This is essentially where we wanted to be. So that clients looking to make small updates wouldn’t need to refer to a guide to make them. Not to mention, we needed to get people updating their website while going about their business, not having to sit in front of a computer.

The answer lies in mobile technology. We needed the equivalent of a mobile app for users to make their website updates, in a way that would be comparable to the Twitter or Facebook app. While it’s not exactly a good idea to stick to rules like 140 characters or less, the general idea on a website is that 140 characters beats 0 characters. We began rolling out a Mobile App of this description to a handful of clients late last year. Not only has the App surpassed expectations from our clients perspectives, but it has also been intuitive enough to lead clients into new areas such as video blogs, or gallery pages.

So, how is this App so simple?

A mobile provides everything you need to publish your business updates. It has WiFi and data, a camera and a keyboard. Blogs or website updates made from a mobile or tablet are unlikely to be reaching the same quality as through traditional means, but your job is to look at your competition and ask, “Can I write more than them, on a more frequent basis?”. This App aims to help you achieve that, in the simplest way possible.

Contact us for set up and training to use the App for your website. If you are struggling to find the time to update your website or conquer the learning curve, the benefits to your business will be endless.

01775 761512

Charity Website Built On Behalf of Holbeach Cemetery Chapels Trust

6th January 201729th November 2016 by driveby

Drive By Websites was delighted to be awarded the contract to build the website on behalf of the Charity; Holbeach Cemetery Chapels Trust. The website we designed is a multi-page, mobile friendly brochure style website which also includes a Community Events Calendar and a News (blog) page – www.holbeachcemeterychapels.org.uk

There are two chapels at Holbeach Cemetery. One is Church of England and the other is Non-Conformist. Both were built in 1854. The chapels are surrounded by a six acre cemetery. There are also some very fine monuments commemorating some of the area’s leading families and figures. Funding has been made available to refurbish the buildings and to find a use for the chapels to benefit the whole community.

A visit to Holbeach Cemetery Chapels will also reward you with views of some splendid architecture and a reminder in respect of how lives and death were celebrated and dignified by our ancestors.

The work of the Charity relies on the support of volunteers. The voluntary roles include:

Members of the Board of Trustees and Advisory Committee all working in a voluntary capacity
Volunteers who manage the administration and undertaking of the Holbeach Cemetery Research Group
Individual volunteers who help with one-off events such as the Heritage Open Day and/or The Great Big Community Textile Project
Volunteers who help with such things as event administration and fundraising

The Holbeach Cemetery Chapels Trust is funded by the Heritage Lottery, the Architectural Heritage Fund, Heritage Lincolnshire County Council and the Gedney Marsh Windcluster Fund.

For more information in respect of mobile friendly websites, please feel free to contact Spalding based Drive By Websites

Website Browsing With A Mobile Has Overtaken Desktop

10th November 20163rd November 2016 by driveby

The clocks have gone back and Christmas is just around the corner. Website browsing, which the writer of this blog can only imagine, is an activity which will be taking a lot more of your time right now. With all those presents to buy, you will probably end up searching the internet for inspirational gift ideas on your Smart phone or tablet.

With the new figures just released demonstrate that it’s even more important to upgrade your website to a mobile friendly solution. The new figures have revealed that Smartphones and tablets are now king as the share of desktop web browsing has shrunk to 48.7% (according to data provided by StatCounter – statcounter.com)

If you’re running your own business, it’s easy to start to rest on the year’s successes at this time of the year. But as you are reading this blog, your competitors maybe stepping it up a gear and boosting their sales. Perhaps even by going mobile-friendly.

If you are a regular reader of Drive By Websites’ blogs, you will know how much we’ve stressed the importance of transferring websites to a mobile friendly solution. Google has continued to remind businesses that mobile friendly websites are the future, and therefore favoured by the search engine.

Drive By Websites is continuing to offer an affordable solution with prices from only £499 plus VAT for an optimised mobile-friendly website.

Join the Google Posts Waiting List

10th November 201618th October 2016 by driveby

Ever hoped your news or blog page could be directly posted into the first page search results? Believe it or not, this may soon be an option!

Google Posts is an experimental feature that Google is currently developing and expanding. It’s been introduced on an invite-only basis. The platform is currently driven towards use by public figures, organisations and it also includes businesses. Any verified individuals can now communicate with text, images and videos directly on Google. Creating content is fast and simple, and once published, posts will appear instantly in search results related to the publisher. Each post can also be shared on popular social networks.

Up Close & Friendly With Google’s Local SEO Update: Possum

10th November 20165th October 2016 by driveby

For some time now, Google has been enhancing local SEO techniques. This makes it increasingly difficult for big brands, such as Amazon, to dominate the search results for localised searches. The introduction of Google’s new update ‘Possum’ gives local people more appropriate results when searching online to find local businesses.

In the update, Google is rewarding businesses whose premises are nearest to searchers. In other words, Google is favouring businesses that are more relevant to the searchers location over the traditional word based search.

For some time now, Drive By Websites has been encouraging our clients to include good quality content within their website for local SEO. This especially applied to location relevant content, as Google has uses the website content to define location. For example, when people search, ‘Websites in Spalding’, Google can find the content on our site and display the result. This is far more important now that the search needn’t even put ‘Spalding’ for this to be effective.

Before Possum: Let’s say I require a monitor and decide to look for a computer shop locally. A directory that publishes location pages for dozens of shops might dominate the local pack. This is not necessarily because the directory optimizes its content better than anyone else, but because it is the largest site in the area with enough content and domain strength to make it high ranking.

After Possum: Instead of a single website/directory dominating the search results, Google allocates gives more page space to other sites based on their proximity to the searcher in conjunction with the usual ranking signals. That is unless the previous directory’s content and data are so well optimized that they outperform the other sites by a wide margin.

For businesses relying on local traffic, possum is extremely important. Now is the time to stand out from the crowd and take a good look at your website content. From now on, you will be competing with local businesses like never before.

Website for residential care home in Holbeach, Lincolnshire

3rd October 2016 by driveby

Drive By Websites has recently been busy in the design and build of a website on behalf of a residential care home in Holbeach, the Holbeach & East Elloe Hospital Trust – http://www.holbeach-hospital.org.uk

Holbeach & East Elloe Trust

The Trust was formed in 1988 because South Lincolnshire Health Authority announced their intention to close the hospital. Rather than face closure, the local community leaders got together and worked with the health authority to find a way to save the hospital from closure.

The hospital is now a registered charity (701458) and receives support from the local community, more especially from The League of Friends. The League of Friends has a fund raising shop in Holbeach.

The Trust provides six beds which are available for use by local GPs. There are also an additional 33 nursing home beds. Not only does the hospital offer residential care but nursing, respite and day care too.

If you would like to know more about the Trust or to make a donation, then please call 01406 422283.

We’ve had fun building this site and we’re delighted with the design which we think complements the branding perfectly.

If you would like more information in respect of website development or website design, then please free free to give us a call on 01775 761512 – you will find Drive By Websites and Drive By Design professional, affordable and easy to get along with.