Many tasks these days can be automated using MS Excel, MS Access and ODBC connection or CSV files together with macros.
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Why use WordPress?
WordPress is the most popular open source Content Management System (CMS) available. Approximately one third of all websites use it. However, it is not just a matter of do it because somebody else is doing it. There are numerous reasons that make it the obvious choice.
It is free to install, deploy, and upgrade. Moreover, tens of thousands of plugins and templates power a flexible and simple interface, which reduces development costs and deployment time. The system is based on a series of PHP files that power its dynamic flexible nature.
1. The most popular CMS in the world
WordPress holds the largest CMS market share by far, and currently accounts for over a third of all websites. As a result, many users are already familiar with the WordPress CMS, requiring less staff training when building a new site.
2. WordPress is Open Source
WordPress is setup on your own server. There are no downloading, installing, and upgrading costs. There are over 50000 plugins for WordPress that allow the user to access sometimes quite complex pieces of code. These often offer website functionality to create online stores, forms, memberships, SEO optimization, etc.
3. WordPress is flexible and able to be tailored
The CMS offers a flexibility to allow a developer to pretty well create anything. Layouts are easily created and modified to suit the creator.
4. Designed for ease of use
WordPress is easy to use and very powerful. Even a non developer can use it and setup simple websites due to its simple effective design. At the other end, a developer can create just about any sort of website they desire with little effort compared to traditional systems. Because of the large number of templates and Plugins, it is powerful and can be easily used to create your desired look and feel.
Furthermore, you can manage your site from anywhere and most platforms. It is available in both PC and Apple versions.
5. Low setup & maintenance costs
WordPress itself is free to setup and maintain if you do it yourself. Other Open Source CMS like Drupal and Joomla are not. Additionally, it is also easier to find WordPress developers when more customization or development is necessary.
6. Search Engine Friendly
WordPress back end is clean and simple. This makes it easy for Google and other search engines to find and index. Each page can be optimised for its own keywords.
7. Examples of WordPress sites you have produced
When starting a business from scratch, there are a number of keys
- What makes you better than anyone else at what you want to do?
- Before you start with any business, ask yourself why is my idea going to work better than what is already available? If it priced better? Is it better quality? Is it more convenience? Do I have a reputation that is better than what is there? Is my new product better in some way to what is already available? How is this advantage sustainable?
- What’s in a name?
- Your business name says a lot about you. Will the business adapt over time? Will this name meet the needs of the future or only the near future?
- When thinking about a name for your business, it is best to find a name that is available for each of the following:
- Business Name
- Website Name (.com.au, .com)
- 1300 Phone Number
- Chart of Accounts
- You need to design a set of accounts that will not only address your legal reporting requirements but also to manage the business
- Suppliers/Contractor/Employees
- You cannot do everything yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you outsource the weaknesses? What skill sets do you need to complement your own? There are many ways to fill this set. You can outsource or hire part time or contract labour.
- Customers
- Who are your customers going to be? What are their demographics? This will help to work out where you will market to. This will dictate where you market. For instance, you are unlikely to market a travel app for 20 year olds in a funeral parlour publication. Whereas, you may advertise it on a travel website.
- Legalities
- Know the legal issues and licensing requirements for whatever you wish to setup.
- Can you protect the intellectual property? In some cases, this may mean protecting the IP by law. In other cases, it may mean only allowing certain people to know certain parts of the business.
- Profitability
- How do you price your product for your market in order to get the highest profits?
- What stock levels do you need to keep?
- What are the key drivers for your business and how do you maximise these?
- Money/Cash Flow
- Where’s the money coming from?
- How are you going to ensure cash flow whilst the business is building?
If you are starting a business from scratch and need help, then speak to us.
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Speed up my website
How do I speed up my website?
This article will discuss how I speed up my website. Firstly, it will look at the importance of a fast website. It will then look at the top 10 reasons why a website is typically slow and under performing. Lastly it will look at what can be done.
The importance of a fast website
The importance of a fast website cannot be underestimated. In order to be found by Google, your website needs to be running fast. If it does not, you will not receive the traffic and you will not make the sales. You may say I don’t need Google to feed me work as I advertise and everyone knows my website address. However, even then, a slow website means that people who visit your website are less likely to stay and read what you have to say or book or buy what you want them to. Your website for many people will be a customer’s or potential customer’s first impression of your business.
So how do we make a fast website?
There are two easy ways to make a website. The first is to create one entirely from HTML. The second is to use a CRM such as wordpress. Lets explore each of these options.
HTML
HTML meaning Hyper Text Markup Language is the language that all websites use to send information across the internet. It is relatively easy to use and can create fast websites. If you only have a few pages, it can be an easy way to setup a website quickly. However, the two major drawbacks. One it is more difficult to scale. Two it does not come with libraries that help you to do common tasks.
WordPress
WordPress is the most common package used to create websites on the web. It is relatively easy to use and very powerful. It allows professional websites to be created relatively easily and can then be updated by yourself. Plugins allow for sophisticated functionality. The downside is that time must be spent optimising your site otherwise, it will be very slow.
Other
Whilst there are other ways of creating websites, they are not as easy to create and update for most users and we will not cover them in this article.
10 easy ways to speed up my website
So, how do I optimise my website for speed? There are a number of things that you must do.
1. Compression
Compression comes in many forms. GZip Brotli and ZLIB all compress files for storage. There are also minifiers that strip out unnecessary blank spaces, etc that are only there to make the files easy to read. Image files can be compressed significantly without loss of quality.
2. Images (scaling & specifying dimensions + choose best format)
By letting the computer know how to interpret your images, the network will save a great deal of time by not spending extra time doing unnecessary calculations. Also modern formats such as webp, webm can load significantly faster that traditional formats.
3. Avoid Errors, redirects & duplication
Make sure that anything that you are linking to actually exists. If it does not, the computer will spend extra time doing unnecessary calculations. Avoid duplicating addresses.
4. Host Google fonts locally
Sending extra data across the internet to download the fonts each time created extra load that can easily be avoided. Hosting Google fonts locally can significantly improve speed but is often forgotten.
5. Cache what is logical to do so
There are essentially two types of caches. Namely, these are local (browser) caches and server caches. Both of these will reduce network traffic and speed up your website.
6. Select fast theme/plugins (WordPress only)
For WordPress, select fast themes and plugins. This can make a significant difference. Also, switch off features that you are not using. For example, if not using a blog, remove emojis, remove author references, remove comments sections. These again can improve speed.
7. Defer and async
Some scripts can run later and do not need to be run until after the rest of the screen is setup. With async (asynchronous), browser will continue to load the HTML page and render it while the browser load and execute the script at the same time. With defer , browser will run your script when the page finished parsing. (not necessary finishing downloading all image files. These will make your page appear to load faster to both Google and to users.
8. Lazy Load images
By loading mages only when they become visible, both Google and Users will perceive your site as loading faster and it will be rewarded with better ranking.
9. Use resource on required pages only
Some Plugins are resource intensive and will significantly slow down your page load time. An example of this is Contact 7 very useful for sending data via a form to an email address. It is used on many websites. However, one can limit its use to a contact page. By doing do, all other pages will not be slowed as much.
10. Less resource intensive Social Media
You can use font awesome and hyperlinks rather than the ones supplied by twitter, facebook or Plugins that are available. Facebook and Twitter both offer code to click but in these cases, it creates a lot of network traffic and should be avoided.
How do I know how I can speed up my website?
The best idea is to run a GT Metrix test of your website using the server closest to where your server is located. So if your website is in Sydney, Australia, select the Sydney, Australia server. If your website is hosted in USA, select one of the US servers. This is the best way to reduce speed. We also use Google Page Speed Insights , Pingdom and Webpage Test at times.
In addition to the points listed, it is very important to ensure that your website is hosted on a server close to your customer location. CDNs can offer multiple locations and as such can speed up for customers in multiple locations.
Hosting can be done on shared servers, Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and Dedicated Servers. Shared Servers are the least costly and slowest. Dedicated Servers are the most expensive and fastest. Depending on what your website needs to do, one of these will serve your purpose.
If you are looking for someone to speed up your HTML or WordPress website, we can certainly do so for you. Send us information on your website and we will send back a no obligation quote. For smaller websites this will normally be in the $400 to $500 range.
Our article on surviving the corona virus may also interest you.
Making your business survive the corona virus is important. The Corona Virus takes over the headlines for good reason. If we are not careful, the economy will go into a Depression not seen before. If we are lucky, the stimulus packages will keep our economy afloat.
What can I do to survive the economic consequences?
So, what can I do to make my business survive the Corona Virus? Firstly, focus on your core. What is it that makes your business unique. Sure you have been told this before in good times. However, at the moment (April 2020) this becomes the difference between survival and not.
Secondly, are there opportunities for your business? Can you build up on line trade? add a delivery service? build up the support for your staff to work from home and decrease costs as a result? Are there new products that are ideal for the current climate? Bunning are starting to sell home gym equipment. Can you offer online courses or product demos? Can your marketing take advantage of the new status quo? Do you have non core business assets that are taking up space? Can you renegotiate leases? interest rates? contracts? Is it time to put everything into storage instead of working from a closed retail store? Are you entitled to the government’s Jobseeker allowances for your staff?
Thirdly, what can be cut from the business that is not or very soon will not be adding to your bottom line. Are there staff who need to be made redundant or have their hours reduced who are not adding value? Are there products lines that are not making a profit or as a result of the current situation are no longer viable? Do you have products that or assets that become dated quickly?
In any economy, there are opportunities. However, make no mistake. This is not a time to be keeping the status quo. It will be the difference between those that survive at the other end and those who do not.