2Cubed April update Newsletter- SEO Link Building, Importance of Web Maintenance and IMPORTANT UPDATE on GDPR Compliance

SEO Link Building
Category: News
April 11, 2018
Welcome to this week’s edition of the 2Cubed Newsletter. Here you’ll find the latest news about the Website Maintenance we have have been carrying out, insight into how to maximize your Website User Experience and some top SEO Tips to aid you in your efforts. Make sure to read to the end to see our message in regards to the upcoming GDPR regulation and what you need to do to ensure you stay in the loop and keep receiving our weekly newsletter!

SEO – Building Links Are The Key to Success

One of the primary ways search engines decide on which pages should rank highest is by looking at the links on those pages. When it’s clear that the content has high-quality links pointing at it, it gets a boost. Some people make the mistake of thinking that all they need to do is get as many links as possible rather than just important ones. This is not the case as the view taken by the search engines is very much “Quality over Quantity”. Some people ignore this and try many methods such as buying links or even building a sheer number of links themselves by dropping them in comments on other sites blogs, forum posts etc… This behavior will not be rewarded and will actually have a negative impact on your site. Search engines want to reward sites that are able to gain “hard links“. Hard links are effectively links that aren’t easily come by, effort has been taken to gain the link. A guest post in a publication with a high standard, one that doesn’t let just anyone write, might be an example of a hard link or getting a high-quality site to link to you from a relevant article or page on its site would be another example.

The type of site where it would be very beneficial for you to earn a link from would be one where you and  potential customers regularly read. Build a relationship with another site where you can both mutually help each other. There is one way in particular to legitimately earn hard links that’s consider quite easy to do, by being social! Get your site all over social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You can use these sites to share your content and in turn your followers on this site may share it with others. All that sharing is a “social signal” to the search engines that what is being shared is considered to be good content. To Learn More About Effective SEO Methods For Your Website Click Here

Why is Website Maintenance so Important?

Website Maintenance is important to any and all businesses, big or small. Your website is like a display window into your business and it can have a huge impact on your site and business is perceived. A well-maintained website that runs efficiently is essential to be in today’s environment. Regular website maintenance helps aid in attracting and retaining customers, maintaining search engine rankings and effectively creating new content, products and services for the public. Your website no matter what it is, should always be centered first and foremost on delivering a great user experience. This can be achieved by routinely adding new content on your website keeping it fresh and by ensuring that all the contact points on your site are in working order constantly.

Another reason why website maintenance is so important is the fact that website maintenance is critical to the search-engine rankings. Websites with old content rank lower in search engine listings and failing to make frequent modifications can cause your site site to be pushed below your competitors in the listings and this will cause your business to suffer. For risk management, you should always to have a business-continuity plan in place for your website incise you have severe maintenance issues such as site crashing etc.. You should also ensure that your hosting service provider has a backup and maintenance plan that is in line with your own business service levels, especially if you have a real-time or mission-critical website as this will be vital in helping to minimize negative outcomes when it comes to damage control of the situation. Of course the best preventive is proactive action by making sure your website maintenance is up to scratch, to say website maintenance is important would be an understatement!

To Learn More About Website Maintenance CLICK HERE

GDPR: COMPLIANCE

In last weeks newsletter we touched on the upcoming EU law on data privacy known as “The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)”. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is the European Union’s new law on data privacy. To now be active in the EU, websites, including social media, will have to comply with the new regulations that will take effect on May 25. This will affect all businesses, big and small. Many businesses are worried as they are unsure what they need to do to be compliant with this new upcoming law. While it may sound overwhelming, there are ways to make compliance more manageable such as the following:

  • Access
The first step toward GDPR compliance is to access all your data sources. You must investigate and audit what personal data is being stored and used across your data landscape. To address GDPR compliance, you can’t rely on common knowledge of where you think personal data might be. The regulation requires organizations to prove that they know where personal data is – and where it isn’t. You need to know where it is and be able to show where it is.
  • Identify
 Once you’ve gotten access to all your data sources, the next step is to inspect them to identify what personal data can be found in each. Considering the volumes of data at hand, this cataloging process can’t be manual. Having the right tools for the job will make a big difference in your ability to meet the May 2018 deadline for GDPR compliance.
  • Govern
 For GDPR compliance, privacy rules must be documented and shared across all lines of business. This is the way to make sure personal data can only be accessed by those with proper rights, based on the nature of the personal data, the rights associated with users groups and the usage context.
  • Protect
For GDPR compliance, you can use three techniques to protect data: encryption, pseudonymization and anonymization. The easiest way to protect data privacy is actually to press the delete button, keeping only the data you need to run critical business processes and added-value analysis.
  • Audit
The fifth step in your journey to GDPR compliance involves auditing. At this stage, you’ll need to be able to produce reports to clearly show regulators that you know what personal data you have access to and where its located.You will also have to demonstrate that you can properly manage the process for getting consent from individuals who are involved. You will also need to be able to prove how the personal data is being used, who uses this data and for what purpose is it used. Finally as per the GDPR regualtions you will have to have the appropriate processes in place to manage things like the right to be forgotten or data breach notifications etc..
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Anchor Text, Page Speed and The Impact of The New GDPR Law

Anchor Text
Category: News
April 6, 2018

Welcome to this week’s edition of the 2Cubed Newsletter. Here you’ll find the latest news about the Website Maintenance we have have been carrying out, insight into how to maximize your Website User Experience and some top SEO Tips to aid you in your efforts.

SEO – Don’t Let Your Site Sink With Poor Anchor Text

Anchor Text is a text link that visitors can click on to be taken directly to another web page, this link can bring a user to either another page on your site or to another website on the internet. Effective anchor text can and should be used to help guide users through navigating throughout your website.

The anchor text should ideally include keywords and phrases related to what your site does. For example if you owned a clothes store, the words “Check out our selection of clothes” on your homepage should link to your online store page where people can browse and ideally buy your products. Through effective use of anchor text you would have helped guide this person from your home page to your online store where you want them to be all in the click of one button. That is why anchor text and its effective use is so important. Anchor text is a great way to boost your SEO, but keep in mind that excessive linking or anchors that don’t really help your readers can raise red flags with Google so make sure the links you put in are natural like the example mentioned above. To Learn More About Effective SEO Methods For Your Website Click Here

Page Speed to Soon Become Factor in Ranking of Mobile Pages

On January 17th Google announced that page speed will become a mobile ranking factor. Google have nicknamed the update the “speed update”. Page speed has been a ranking factor on desktop since 2010. Now for the first time Page Speed will also become a ranking factor which will now be an official part of a mobile page’s placement on the Google SERP. This will come into effect July 2018 so there is time for everyone to make sure their page speed is as efficient and fast as possible before this comes into effect.

One of the main aims of this update will be to target excessively slow loading pages, if you have slow loading pages on your website and you don’t amend them now, this update will punish you. However according to google’s announcement, they don’t predict that an extensive amount of pages will be impacted once the ranking factor of Page Speed becomes incorporated into the Google Algorithm in July. Page speed should already be a priority for any website who wishes to be successful as it is such an important component, and if it wasn’t already it should definitely be now with this “speed update” looming.

To Learn More About Increasing Your Page Speed CLICK HERE

GDPR: Why it Matters and What You Need to Know About it

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is the European Union’s new law on data privacy. It has come about as a result of the public concern over privacy. The GDPR replaces the EU’s Data Protection Directive, which went into effect in 1995. Unlike a directive, it does not require national governments to pass any enabling legislation and so it is directly binding and applicable. It will ensure that every individual on the internet has a right to know which company has what data about them, plus the right to have it destroyed if they wish. To now be active in the EU, websites, including social media, will have to comply with the new regulations that will take effect on May 25. This will affect all businesses, big and small.

GDPR will now place requirements on data controllers, forcing them to explain to people what personal data they intend to collect and why. It’s focused completely around consent. GDPR will also let users request a copy of their personal information free-of-charge and be entitled to get a response within a month. It will give people the right to not be subject to significant decisions by businesses that impact their privacy. Users will also have some rights to erase their personal data if they withdraw consent or it’s deemed no longer necessary for the reason it was collected. Violations of this can trigger hefty fines for businesses. For a long time the internet has been a bit of a wild west like environment when it comes to data privacy and businesses had free rein to do as they wished, this is no longer the case with the EU finally cracking down on this hot button issue, businesses must make sure they are able to show compliance by the time GDPR comes into effect on May 25, 2018.

To Learn More About GDPR and Other Important Google Updates You Need to Know About CLICK HERE

March update for Web Maintenance Customers – Part 4 Newsletter

Category: News
March 28, 2018

Welcome to our newest edition of the 2Cubed Newsletter. Here you’ll find the latest news about the Website Maintenance we have have been carrying out, insight into how to maximize your Website User Experience and some top SEO Tips to aid you in your efforts.

Maintenance – Importance of Regular Website Maintenance Regular Website Maintenance is something every website requires if it wishes to operate efficiently. Website Maintenance is a relatively simple process, but there are basic mistakes that many people can make if they are not careful. Avoid these and you’ll be well on your way to a safer, cleaner website that isn’t a huge pain to keep running.

One of the great things about creating websites is that you can start small and add things as you need them and further expand the site naturally. It’s recommended to start out with a pamphlet-style site and then from there you can add things like shops, blogs etc… Find out what your target audience want and then tailor your site to suit those needs. Generally speaking the more bigger and complicated a website is, the more likely you are to be presented with bigger and more complicated problems. By starting small at first, it’ll be easier for you to isolate and solve any issues as they may appear and by the time you do begin to introduce more complicated additions to the site you will hopefully be a lot more familiar with your site and it’s inner workings, and be better equipped to deal with any Website Maintenance issues as they may arise.

User Experience (UX) – Quality Content over Quantity A great website should always contain great content. However some people make the mistake of assuming that the more they put into their site and expand it the better it will be, but this is not always the case, bigger is not always better.

When websites create content they should always place an emphasis on the quality of their content as opposed to just focusing on producing a large quantity of it.To give a user the best experience possible your website should be full of strong content that matters, if you look at your website and look at it objectively and find that if you removed two or three pages, that there would be no effect caused then these pages are weak content. Every piece of content should have a purpose and be important enough that if they were to be removed it would have a negative effect on your site. If it’s not vital it’s not needed, if it’s not quality content it’s just extra unneeded quantity content.

SEO – Power of the Focus Keyword A focus keyword is a search term that you want your page to rank for the most, so hopefully when people search for this term they will find your site. When you have decided on the focus keyword you wish to rank for, you will need to put some effort into finding out whether or not there are already many searches for the focus keyword you wish to use. When you have found out what search terms are actually used by people, you will then need to know whether your idea for your post or page fits the needs and expectations of the people who are using these search terms.

The easiest and most effective way to find out if your content meets your target audience’s needs is to simply google your proposed focus keyword yourself. When you do this, you should look at the first two result pages. Are the other articles and similar results in these two pages something similar to what your page or post will be, does it look like a place where your page and post would fit in between naturally? It’s important to ask yourself this question because if you are going to be optimizing for this specific focus keyword ideally you will be aiming to get your post amongst these results. When used effectively, a strong focus keyword is powerful! Choosing the perfect focus keyword isn’t always simple. When trying to find the perfect focus keyword you should always aim to have a combination of words that are regularly used by your target audience. Aim for a focus keyword that is high on volume and one which will suit your audience.

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Premium Website Design – Make Your First Impression The Right Impression

Premium Website Design
Category: Projects
March 15, 2018
First impressions…. They’re very important when it comes to potential customers, make a good one and you’re already on the way to having a happy customer, make a bad one and you might not have a customer at all! The first impression most businesses make is through their website, this impression will play a big part in deciding whether the person viewing your site will become a customer or not. So how can you make sure your website will make the right first impression to guarantee success? It’s simple: Make sure your website is well designed. Your website is the online face of your organisation. You want to make it as professional and appealing to your target audience as possible given the competition and options available out there. An amateurish looking website will not instill any confidence in the person viewing it and it will paint your business in a bad light making it seem unprofessional looking, this will give a very bad first impression, one that most won’t recover from. Avoid this happening by having a premium website designed for your business by experts at 2Cubed who know what it takes to ensure your business is looking professional, is interactive and most importantly makes that great first impression! Having a professionally premium designed website gives visitors confidence in your products and services. Competition is rife on the Internet and first impressions are very important; your website should give a professional representation of your business while retaining that personal touch. 2Cubed has developed and designed new websites for numerous businesses from Wexford and further afield. We have also created and added new functionality to existing websites to give them upgrades and make them perform better for their businesses. 2Cubed is able to create a premium designed website that is unique to your business, has a creative appearance and clear and easy navigation, loads efficiently, and works properly in all the major browsers. We have over 14 years’ experience in the industry, providing successful, efficient ways to create a website quickly. We provide excellent after-sales service and efficient customer support to ensure that you have a positive user experience. Make sure your first impression will be the right impression by getting your premium website designed with 2Cubed!

GROW COOK EAT – THE GIY TV SHOW

THE GIY TV SHOW
Category: News
March 14, 2018
2Cubed are delighted to congratulate our friends at GIY(Grow It Yourself) on their upcoming programme GROW COOK EAT on RTE1 which airs from tonight Wednesday 14th March at 7.30pm. 
 
GROW COOK EAT is GIY’s first TV show. It’s on RTE 1 at 7.30pm on Wednesdays from March 14th 2018 for 7 weeks. Presented by GIY Founder Michael Kelly and Head of Community Development at GIY Karen O’ Donohoe.
 
GROW COOK EAT is a weekly masterclass in food growing at home. Showcasing a different star vegetable every week grown from seed to harvest, they will take you on a journey from pot to plate and show you how to create a delicious meal that anyone at home can easily replicate. 
 
Whether you’re Looking to improve your growing knowledge or just looking to eat something healthy and delicious, you will find plenty of inspiration from each programme!
 
For more information on the programme and GIY be sure to check http://growcookeat.ie/ 

Do I Need a New Website?

Web Design UX - Web Design Wexford
Category: Tips and Tricks
February 20, 2018
The whole point of having a website is to inform site users about your product, brand or service while leading them down the sales funnel in the process. However, far too many companies fall into the trap of launching their website and subsequently ignoring it, failing to engage with site users, letting its content become stagnant and in some cases, harm their brand image. In its current guise, does your website generating sales and enquiries? If the answer is ‘No’ or, ‘I’m not sure’ then it’s time to take a look at redesigning your online presence. 2Cubed specialise in producing fully bespoke Web Designs for clients based in Dublin and beyond. Experts in WordPress & Magento Development, we take our clients ideas for their brands and make them an online reality.

Is your website mobile optimised?

Websites that have not been designed to effectively display on mobile devices should be consigned to the annals of history. Mobile traffic has seen double digit growth since 2009, rising to just over 50% in 2017 and any company that fails to adjust their online approach to accommodate this growth in traffic runs the risk of alienating more than half of their target market and being left in their competitors wake in the process.

Have You Switched From HTTP to HTTPS?

Https isn’t just for online shops anymore. This is due to the fact that Google have recently strengthened their stance on the importance of site security with the presence of HTTPS singling out a sites security level to Google’s ranking algorithm. Sites that fail to change over from http to https are being hit with reductions in their Google Search Result Page ranking as can be seen in the fact that more than 75% of results on page one of Google Search Results consist of HTTPS sites.

Is Your User Experience Up To Scratch?

User Experience, or UX is the invogue buzzword in contemporary web design. In the past few years we have become more and more accustomed to making use of the internet on a daily basis. As such, our expectations of functionality and user experience have increased and sites that don’t meet our expectations won’t be long seeing their traffic numbers fall. Does your current site take an eternity to fully load? Is a long winded sales journey causing you to hemorrhage potential customers? Are site users engaging with your content? Sites that experience a high level of engagement while providing a high standard of user experience (UX) will be similarly rewarded with an improvement in their SERP positioning. First and foremost, visitors must be able to find their desired product and complete a purchase in as few clicks as possible. Simplifying the customer journey will help reduce your bounce rate and help push site users down the sales funnel. Engaging, informative and targeted content helps minimise site bounce rate, gives your brand a sense of industry authority in the eyes of site users and is another of those all important signals of competency that Google’s Search Algorithm likes to reward.

Why Choose 2Cubed?

Updating your Web Design with 2Cubed will go a long way to rectifying any and all of these issues.Our in house Graphic Designer will make sure that your newly designed website is bespoke to your preferences and needs while our highly experienced team of developers will ensure that your site remains at the forefront of plug in and security updates. Don’t just take our word for it though, take a look at some of our recent Web Design work for Clients based in Dublin below and if you like what you see, get in touch with us today and take the first steps towards optimising your online presence.

What The GDPR Means For Your Website

What is GDPR
Category: Tips and Tricks
November 9, 2017

What is GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a series of principles designed to strengthen the protection of data for EU citizens and residents. Having been ratified in April 2016 it will be enforced by every EU state from the 25th of May 2018 onward and represents the single greatest advancement of EU data privacy in more than two decades.

While many of the legislative principles that make up the GDPR are similar to those found in the current Data Protection Act (DPA), there are a series of new measures and significant enhancements involved.

Introduced in order to protect individuals from potential future data breaches, the GDPR will allow individuals to wield far more control over the personal data companies retain about them and place significant emphasis on businesses ability to demonstrate data control and security.

Who will be affected by GDPR?

These changes will impact any company that collects their clients personal data whether it’s through a website, an app, email or any other means that results in personal data being retained in an internal database.

This means that many businesses will have to adjust their approach to data retention and transparency in order to ensure they don’t incur a non-compliance sanction of up to €20,000,000 or 4% of annual worldwide turnover.

Make sure you are GDPR compliant 

Data transparency between companies and individuals is a cornerstone of the GDPR. Companies will be required to inform individuals:

  • What personal data are being retained

  • How their personal data are being used

  • Who is using their data

  • How long their data will be stored for and,

  • Who to contact with regards to obtaining further information on the company’s data processing procedure

In conjunction with data transparency, data security is paramount to maintaining GDPR compliance. In order to ensure this, firms will be required to carry out an online review, answering the following questions:

  • Does our target market include EU citizens? (Check currency listings, etc.)

  • Does our website contain a comment section?

  • Does our website facilitate newsletter subscription?

  • Does our website gather and retain personal information or online identifiers such as IP addresses via analytics?

Following this, it will be beneficial to carry out a review of the personal data being collated and retained, under the following headings:

  • Why are these data being collated?

  • Why are these data being retained?

  • How long will these data being retained?

  • How secure are these data?

Over the course of these reviews, any potential weak points in a firm’s data protection protocol should become clear and allow the company to take the necessary steps to maximise data security and minimise their risk of GDPR non-compliance.

Suffice it to say, this is a highly simplified guide to GDPR compliance.  If you have any questions or concerns about the potential impacts of GDPR on your firm please contact 2 cubed here and our web development experts will be happy to help.

 

Website Maintenance Tips & Tricks

Website Maintenance Tips & Tricks
Category: Tips and Tricks
October 5, 2017

Your website is often the first point of contact between your business and your clients. It impacts all stages of the customer journey from initial enquiry through to completing a purchase and potentially forming a long standing customer relationship.

In order to effectively reflect the fluidity of your brand position and business offering, your website must be maintained regularly. If potential customers visit your website only to find outdated information on services and products you no longer offer, you might find it’s about as useful as a brolly in a hurricane!

So, how do you ensure your website is maintained to the highest standard without it taking up your entire week?  

The best bet is to create a maintenance checklist and schedule each task into your calendar for completion. This way, you can ensure that your website remains regularly updated while minimising your maintenance time pressure.

The following are five of tasks that should be included in any maintenance calendar.

Review Your Website Analytics 

Analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, are your friends. They allow you to track how visitors find your website, which pages are particularly successful and which are not. Having a grasp of these figures is essential to the success of your website and overall online marketing strategy. They should be reviewed on a weekly basis to keep you fully informed and allow you to augment your content strategy to maximise success.

Fix Broken Links

When it comes to navigating a website there are few things more annoying than coming across a 404 error page. It’s thoroughly off putting as a potential customer and gives the impression of a lack of professionalism. That said, broken links can appear quite easily. If you forget to update a link after making even small changes to your website’s files, you could be left with a horrible assortment of 404 pages.  

The good news is that there is no shortage of tools at your disposal to help fix these issues. Google Search Console is a free to use service, provided by Google, that allows you to check for and fix indexing errors that lead to 404 errors. Alternatively the wordpress plugin ‘Broken Link Checker’ will continually scan every page on your website for broken links and email you if/when a new one appears.

Optimise Website Navigation

It is imperative that visitors to your site end up where you want them as quickly and as easily as possible. Navigating to your key pages and contact forms should require as few clicks as possible. If navigating through your website proves an arduous task, you’ll likely see your bounce rate fly right through the roof.  

Deliver Effective Relevant Content

Content is king. Not only does compelling content add pages to your website, it attracts visitors and allows you to position yourself as an authority in your area as well.

Keep your content posts relevant to the services you provide as well as the needs of potential customers and you will be on track to turning your website visitors into valuable customers. Not only that but, consistently posting relevant content will keep you in Google’s good books, making sure that your website ranks higher in search results. Set a schedule, brainstorm content ideas in advance and stick to it.

Assess Your Website Goals 

What is your website for? What metrics are you using to measure website success? Are you hitting your targets? Business and Online Marketing Goals are fluid, they don’t exist in a vacuum. Equipped with your latest analytics feedback, you should reassess your website goals on a regular basis. These goals should be written down and set for each quarter allowing you to measure successes and failings on an ongoing basis and implement adjustments where necessary.

Developing and following an intuitive website maintenance plan is a key step on the path to ensuring that your website remains professional, user-friendly and accessible to your current and potential customers.

If you’d like to improve your website, social media, brand identity, or want a Digital DNA assessment and overhaul, contact 2Cubed today!