CONFESSIONS OF AN HONEST WEB MARKETER

May 1, 2017 by Nicholas Bosch

I shouldn’t even be writing this right now. But I had to – I just had to. I literally had 3 different clients tell me horror stories this week that made me mad. Very mad. As I was sharing these stories with my business partner, I had the idea to start sharing these stories with you. The title for this series of blogs came to me at the same time: “Confessions of an Honest Web Marketer.” I hope you don’t see it as a pompous title because I really do see myself as an honest guy and business owner. It makes me mad when I hear horror stories from my clients on how they were, or currently are, being treated by their existing web marketing company.

THE KIDNAPPER

I have a client for whom I have done work on a project. He came to me this week with another opportunity to build out a website for an organization that he now leads. The organization has a website that has been online for a number of years, and they have been using a web developer to handle updates. They aren’t terribly pleased with the website as a whole and, for that matter, the web developers’ handling of website updates. They’ve made a decision to shop out a new web build. Because of my relationship with the owner, he naturally thought of me.

Baked into the existing website is a search feature that allows users to search for members of the organization. It was communicated to me that this search feature spits results out depending on the search query, and there are over 1500 members that are active in the organization. I communicated to the client that it would be ideal to get access to the back-end of the existing website so that I could see the code for this feature, and ascertain whether or not we could utilize it in the new website. With that, they reached out to their existing web developer to ask for access – to their website.

Side note: this developer didn’t create the website, she is the person that ended up getting the opportunity to work on it after the original developer declined in the ongoing business. As such, this is a non-proprietary open source platform and no honest developer should have any issues with giving their clients access to the code.

So you can probably guess what happens next. The current web developer has decided that she doesn’t want to provide access to the website. She is holding the site hostage because she doesn’t want to lose the on-going business that she has been enjoying over the last few years.

Can you believe it? I mean, REALLY? She has no legal claims to this website. She doesn’t own this site. Yet she is refusing the client access to the back-end. Horror story. Dishonest web developer. Shame, shame, shame. I hate it when I hear about stuff like this. It reflects negatively on my industry as a whole and it just makes me mad to know that there are web developers out there who pull these kinds of shenanigans. I want to tell you something: this will never happen to you if you partner with Brew City Marketing. I cannot even imagine pulling these kinds of games with my clients.

PULL THE WOOL OVER THEIR EYES

Just today I had a prospect call me to tell me that his existing website provider had informed him that they could no longer host his old, outdated website and that he “needed” to update it to a new platform. Mind you, I know this provider, as they are also local in this market, and I know that they host their websites on a 3rd party server. Disclaimer: there is no server IN THE WORLD that will kick your site off because it’s old.

The prospect also told me that the company said that they will triple their monthly hosting fee until he upgrades his website. The guy was confused and upset by the time he called me. He didn’t understand why they were forcing him to update his website, but he wasn’t entirely sure if what they were telling him was actually true. He also told me that he was one of their first clients and had been with that company for 14 years. He said that he was happy paying the monthly hosting, and a couple hundred dollars each year for updates, but didn’t feel right about what they were trying to do to him.

The site was surely outdated and not mobile friendly. I told him that if he were my client that I would also recommend a new website but that I would never force his hand and raise his hosting until he committed. I am simply flabbergasted that this company is out there telling their clients this B.S.

We have a plan of attack though: I am going to email this other web company and tell them that the client is requesting that we host their website for them. The client was wary of trying to do this on his own because he knows that they’re aware that he doesn’t understand all this web stuff. I will be contacting this other company to get the website files so we can put them on our server. Once they are on our server, we can access the domain and redirect to the new files – on our server. The client will not HAVE TO update their website, unless they want to. Their hosting fees will go back down to a reasonable rate and the client will never ever have to worry about his website provider pulling the wool over his eyes.

It makes me sick when website companies use confusion in our industry to get dollars from clients. I made a promise to myself when I started this company that I would always be truthful and respectful to my clients. I know without a shadow of a doubt, that even if that promise loses me some dollars in certain instances, in the long run, that approach will make me successful. I am an honest website developer and I will always tell it to my clients straight.

From Mark Dalnodar

Why WordPress: Search Engines Love WordPress

June 15, 2016 by April Bautista

Search engines love WordPress websites.

This is the first post in Why WordPress?, an original blog series about the benefits of WordPress and how it’s “gone to work” for actual Brew City clients. Next time, we’ll be talking about how WordPress allows your website to grow as your business does. Follow our blog to keep up with every post in the series!

Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo love WordPress websites. Why? To put it simply: WordPress was built to encourage search engines to crawl your website for content–and keep them coming back for more.

Here’s how WordPress does it.

Search Engine Friendly URLs
A client of ours chose to go with a DIY-website builder, but needed help with on-site SEO. When we logged on to help with on-site optimization, we quickly realized that it wasn’t anywhere near the level of optimization that can be achieved with WordPress. Specifically, we couldn’t create permalinks for each blog post and page–a must for SEO. In contrast, WordPress allows for the creation of permalinks or search engine friendly URLs, making for very precise search engine optimization and easy indexing.

Clean Code
The code behind WordPress is flawlessly “clean”, making it super easy for search engines to read and index a given website’s content. Additionally, each page, post, and image can have it’s own meta tag, keywords, description, and title. These same items can also be optimized for specific keywords.

Automatic Pinging
Wordpress automatically “pings” search engines to notify them of any updates or changes you make to your website. Pinging gives your website visibility and ensures that new content is indexed quickly.

SEO Plugins
Wordpress has an extensive plugin library with many more new plugins being added everyday. SEO plugins, in particular, help to extend the built-in SEO capabilities of WordPress. At Brew City, we often use Yoast SEO, but there are many out there that help improve search engine indexing and performance.

Powerful Content Management
Wordpress was originally created as a blogging platform, which is great for SEO. Search engines love the type of fresh, new content that’s frequently shared on blogs. WordPress makes it easy by having blogging capabilities already built into the software and allowing for easy integration.

Other platforms do a great job of making your website visible to search engines, but in our experience no platform does it better than WordPress. When it comes to clean code and built-in SEO capabilities, WordPress is definitely king.

Why WordPress: A Blog Series

June 7, 2016 by April Bautista

If you use WordPress to publish content on the web, you’re in good company. From the New York Times to Forbes Magazine, WordPress is arguably the top content management system on the web today. But, with dozens of other content management systems to choose from, why do over 75 million bloggers, artists, business owners and more choose WordPress? And more importantly, if you’re a business owner who’s considering building a website of your own, why should you?

In “Why WordPress”, our six-part blog series, we’ll not only talk about the features that make WordPress great, we’ll also share real-world examples of our own clients reaping the benefits of this simple, but powerful software.

Here are the topics we’ll explore over the next few weeks.

Search engines love WordPress websites – It’s true: search engines crawl WordPress websites more frequently than any other type of website. Why? Because the simple and clean code behind WordPress makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index your website. Having the ability to optimize each page, post and image helps, too.

You have complete control of your website – WordPress is an open source CMS, which means any user can manipulate, customize or redistribute it as he or she sees fit. In other words, WordPress is not proprietary. Effectively, this means that you have the freedom to do whatever you want with your website, whether that means radically altering the code and migrating it to any hosting company.

The design of your website is 100% customizable – Having complete control of your website is one of the primary benefits of WordPress. With WordPress, the look and feel of your website 100% customizable, allowing your brand to stand out from the crowd.

Plugins extend the functionality of your website – There are over 29,000 plugins in the WordPress directory. Even better, a new plugin is added every hour! Plugins are customized code that extend and expand the functionality of your website, giving you the ability to build a full-scale E-commerce website or add a Twitter feed, among thousands of other options.

Your website can grow as your business grows – WordPress sites are highly scalable. Your website can have hundreds and thousands of pages, blog posts, or products. Rest assured that no matter how much your business grows, performance of the your website will not be compromised in the least.

You can have multiple users – As an administrator of a WordPress website you can set-up multiple users and assign differing access levels . No need to purchase additional users or wait for a developer to make the updates for you.

For our first post in the series, we’ll be talking about why search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo love WordPress. Follow our blog to keep up with every post in the series.

Why Should Milwaukee Small Businesses Choose a Milwaukee Web Design Company?

October 15, 2015 by Brew City Marketing

Blog2_Oct As web-savvy internet marketers, we understand the allure of tapping a global marketplace to meet your business needs. But, as business owners ourselves, we also recognize that sometimes it’s better to source your services from your local economy rather than trying to outsource it online.

If you’re a Milwaukee business owner in the market for a new website, consider this:

A Milwaukee web design company will know your market, intimately.
A good web site speaks through colors, words, and myriad other design elements that resonate with its target audience. When you choose a web designer who actually lives and breathes in your market, those design elements are much more likely to hit the target.
Supporting local businesses puts money into the local economy.
Why is that important? Because putting money into the local economy in which your business does business inevitably ends up meaning more business for your business one way or another.
Supporting local businesses supports entrepreneurship.
If you’re a business owner, you’re an entrepreneur. So, you already understand the value of entrepreneurship and the benefits that it creates. When you support local businesses, you support hard-working, risk-taking people just like yourself who are making Milwaukee a stronger, better place to live and do business.
As Milwaukee web designers, we’ll be here when you need us.
When you do business with people who are three states (or nations) away, it’s easy for them to hide when there’s a problem. But when you do business with people who are just three miles away, well, it gets a little harder for them to pretend they’re not around. If you have a problem, you’ll know exactly how and where to find us.
Because sometimes you need face time.
The quality and dependability of a website can make or break a small business. And good websites don’t come cheap. Are you really ready to take a risk on something that important with someone you’ve never met? It may sound cliche, but there’s no substitute for talking to someone face-to-face to both explain your needs and get a feeling for what they’re about.

Does your business need a new website or refresh? Call us at 414-208-0700 or fill out our contact form today for a free consultation.

From Myanmar to Milwaukee — Website Design for World Travelers

September 30, 2014 by Brew City Marketing

With dozens of biking trips and thousands of miles under their wheels, Peter and Sally Blommer knew that sharing their long history of two-wheeled world travel wouldn’t be easy. Having bicycled everywhere from Cuba to Cambodia (and seemingly everywhere in between!), they wanted a new website that made it easier for friends and visitors to see where they’d been and which trips they liked best. They came to Brew City Marketing because they knew they had a lot of content that wasn’t well organized, making it hard for visitors to navigate and find information.

How Brew City Marketing helped:

Easy-to-use WordPress content management allows the Blommers to edit their website on their own.
Our new website design gives their site a new, fresh look.
Our content reorganization makes their site easier to navigate and use.
New review/rating functionality ranks trips and makes it easy for visitors to find the trips the Blommers liked best.
New real-time geo-location integration allows the Blommers to share real-time trip information.

ride-the-road-milwaukee-web-deisgn

With a bright, streamlined look and cool, new functionality, their Ride the Road website is easy to use, offers loads of interesting and helpful info for bike travelers, and ranks their bike trips for easy-to-find traveling information. Better yet, new functionality for geo-location allows them to show folks exactly where they are on any given road trip. What’s the point of riding the road if you’re not sharing it with friends, right?

Visit Ride the Road yourself, and see how we’re helping the Blommers share their love for pedaling around the world.

See what else our Milwaukee web design team is working on. And, if you like what you see, give us a call—we’d love to help you make the most of your website too!

We’re Flushing Away the Competition

September 29, 2014 by Brew City Marketing

When Alpine Plumbing decided it was time to update their six-year-old website with the new services they now have to offer, we showed them how a modern, dynamic website could really set them apart from their competition. Now they have a new website that’s ready to flush away their competitors by showcasing their services, experience and capabilities. They even have a YouTube channel to chronicle their work. Check out Alpine Plumbing’s redesigned website, and see how we managed their:

Website redesign
WordPress content management
Brand building
Social media linking/integration
Website writing/SEO optimization
Mobile website design

Here we go, raising the roof again!

June 2, 2014 by Brew City Marketing

When Dave North decided that it was time to revamp his roofing company’s website, he had more in mind than just your standard website refresh. In fact, with his old site clocking in at nearly 5 years old, he knew that there was a lot that we could do to help him take advantage of social media and new third-party Internet applications. And help we did!

Now Dave’s site showcases his team’s incredible skill at implementing high-end roofing projects. To help him get his social media steam engine moving, our Milwaukee web design team integrated sharing icons for the most popular social media and review platforms, and we set up an easy-to-use blog that he and his team can post to. Plus, now Dave has a Customer Reviews page that puts his visitors one click away from the most popular review and social media sites, including Yelp, Google+ Local and Facebook.

The best part, however, may be Dave’s new ability to create one-page, customized proposals for clients directly on his new site. Using Picasa and individualized proposals, he’ll be able to show prospects just what he and his team can do. See our web design mojo in action at Dave North Roofing’s great new site, and see how we did the following, and more:

WordPress content management
Responsive web design
Social media sharing
Google+ integration
Customer review form integration

Our Holistic Approach to Web Design

April 28, 2014 by Brew City Marketing

Soothe your senses by taking a moment to check out our website redesign for Be Well Yoga and Ayurveda. Integrating their philosophy of inner peace and mindfulness, we designed a website that offers a truly whole body experience. Clean and modern, it soothes and comforts while explaining the ancient wisdom and beauty principles that guide their yoga and Ayurveda services.

Be Well’s new website integrates an events calendar, online scheduling and a service menu, making it easier for health- and wellness-seeking clients to schedule appointments for any of their many mind-and-body healing services.

View our good karma in action at Be Well Yoga and Ayurveda’s new website, and see how we did the following, and more:

WordPress content management
Website design/redesign
Integrated online scheduling and event calendar
Social media sharing
Blog writing

When Was the Last Time You Backed Up Your Website?

April 21, 2014 by Brew City Marketing

Do you back up your own website? How long has it been since you backed it up? If you can’t remember, it may be time to rethink how you’re maintaining it.

Once your business website is built and the “hard” work is done, it’s easy to think that everything else can now run on automatic. Unfortunately, for small and large business owners alike, that’s not really the case. In today’s world of ever-evolving technology, security threats, and rapid-fire software changes, there will always be the need for ongoing website maintenance, which means there will always be a reason to back up your site.

Regardless of what business you’re in, if you use a website to reach and connect with your customers, losing it can be disastrous. All it takes is for one virus, one hacker, one crash or server meltdown to erase all of the coding and data that constitute your website. That’s the public face of your company, so if it disappears for some reason, you (quite literally!) lose face.

Here’s the Risk

Just think: In a matter of seconds, your business could go from a trustworthy service with a robust website with customer testimonials, service listings and offers, to de facto anonymity.

Sure, that’s not necessarily a security issue (unless, of course, you equate financial security with website security, which maybe you should!), but it’s definitely a customer service issue.

If it’s been awhile since you last backed up your site, it may be time to roll up your sleeves and git ‘er done.

What to Back Up

If you’re maintaining your website yourself and this is your first time backing it up, make sure that you back up both your database and all of your other files. (So, you’ll need everything: the core installation files, plugins, theme, JavaScript and PHP scripts, image files, and everything else.)

Basically, if you forget any little nugget of precious content or formatting information, you could end up with a website that is broken, missing information or only partially functional if you have to use your backup files to restore it. So, you want to make sure that you get everything.

How Often to Back Up

How often you should back up your site really depends on how dynamic your site is. For instance, a nice WordPress site that uses customized themes and plugins will need more frequent updating than a static website, but it also won’t benefit from incremental security updates and usability updates. (And, as any web designer or coder can tell you: incremental updates are much less painful and time-consuming in the long run.)

Regardless of what your site looks like or how it’s created, to be safe, you should back it up at least every time a change is made, whether that’s to the content, the design, or something behind the scenes. This, at least, will protect you from losing what you have.

If you don’t have the time or technical skills to back up your business website, we can help. As a full-service web design agency, we offer fully managed hosting and backup services for WordPress websites.

Look here for more information about our Milwaukee website hosting services or fill out our contact form today to talk to someone about our services.

WordPress Security Management

June 25, 2013 by Brew City Marketing

A surprisingly high number of business owners and executives hardly ever think about WordPress hosting and security. After all, they rationalize, they don’t have access to million-dollar accounts or customer credit card numbers… they couldn’t possibly have to worry about sophisticated cyber crimes.

That’s understandable, but it also isn’t the way WordPress security works. In fact, smaller websites and blogs have more to worry about than other sites, not less, because most thieves and hackers aren’t looking for a huge payout – they are looking for an easy target.

In many cases, they aren’t trying to steal actual money, but rather to hijack your website or install malicious code. That makes WordPress security something you should pay serious attention to. Luckily, there are a few quick and easy steps you can take to help protect your site:

1. Back up everything, and back it up often.

Even without someone intentionally trying to wreck your site, it’s easy to accidentally lose all of your content, including posts and images, during an update or server crash. For that reason, everything on your WordPress site should be backed up frequently.

2. Don’t leave the front door wide open.

If you’re using usernames like “admin,” or passwords that resemble “password” or “1234,” then now is the time to make a change. These kinds of oversights are invitations to thieves, and amongst the biggest reasons that WordPress sites are commonly hacked.

3. Remember that updates and patches are recommended for a reason.

The great thing about WordPress, as a platform, is that it’s so popular. When someone discovers a security hole, developers work to close it quickly. You can only take advantage, however, if you update and patch your site as necessary (or have a business web designer do it for you).

4. Don’t ignore your WordPress site.

Often, the first way you can tell something is wrong with your site is by taking a quick look at it. If you never scan your own posts and pages, you might be the last to know that you have a security problem.

5. Sign up for periodic reviews and updates.

And finally, it’s a good idea to have a business web design and online marketing team look through your site once in a while – both to assess the security, and to see if your web business is growing as quickly as it should be.

Naturally, it helps to have the right business web design and Internet marketing team on your side when it comes to protecting your WordPress site. But, by following these five tips, you can put in a good “first line of defense” that will help you prevent the most common kinds of WordPress security problems.

Call or email Brew City Marketing today to see how we can help you grow your web presence and make your business more profitable.

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