In our video blog series, Minds of MINDSCAPE, a member of our team will share a few words of wisdom about their particular area of expertise.more
A few weeks ago, a client (who is far more technologically sophisticated than I am) was talking about GDPR and its impact on their business. Inspired by that conversation, I decided to create a quick overview of GDPR for those of you who, like me, are easily confused by lengthy acronyms. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a strategist and writer, not an attorney with international expertise in data privacy.more
Launching an eCommerce component of your business can be quite stressful. You want to make sure that you choose a platform that not only has an interface that is easy for your customers to use, but also one that offers a level of security and support that will provide you and your customers with peace of mind that they are safe while they are shopping.more
I get it. Your website is due for an update. You've spent weeks, maybe months, designing what you'd consider the best web design to ever bless the internet. You want to share this design with the world and have them bask in its eternal glory. The problem is, you don’t know how to code.more
If you’ve spent any time browsing the web in the last few years, you’ve probably encountered a chatbot. It popped up in the bottom corner of your screen and asked if there was anything that you needed help with. But that’s a very basic chatbot and in recent years they have come a long way. Now they are capable of making recommendations, qualifying leads and engaging visitors. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, take a step back and talk about what a exactly a chatbot is.more
A content management system or CMS, is at the heart of each and every website. It’s the thing that makes your website, well a website. So, choosing the right one for your business can be a huge decision. You want to choose one that meets your needs without breaking the bank.more
We've all heard it a thousand times, "You have to walk before you can run". You have to learn the basic aspects of something before you can move on to the more complex ones. This holds true for almost everything in life, including learning how to write proper CSS (the style language that defines fonts, colors, margins, background images, etc. on a website).more
A website redesign is like any big project: it gets put off until it becomes absolutely necessary. Here are a few (light-hearted) ways to tell that it's time.more
Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of WordPress. It's easy-to-use, incredibly flexible, and the price point is right where I like it. (That would be "Free.") Those attributes have made WordPress tremendously popular as a platform, but all that traffic is like a magnet for hackers, thieves, and other malcontents. One of the big dings on WordPress was security. An old joke was, "You're running WordPress? Congratulations. You've been hacked." The good news is that the WordPress core is actually quite secure. The bad news is that there are still plenty of ways that your site and data can be exposed. The better news is that there are plenty of things you can do to reduce your vulnerability.more
Remember the last time you redesigned your website? How long did that process take and how pleasant was it? If you're like most, chances are the project took far more time and money than you care to remember! Did the site perform better? Did it get you more leads, more sales or increase your margins? I sincerely hope it did, and congratulate you on being in the minority if that is the case!more
Let's be honest. Building a new website sucks! Sure, it starts out fun when you get to see new design concepts but that's typically where the fun stops abruptly. It can take months to build out the site and get it up on a content management system. After that, the hard part starts. And in our experience, this is the part that can literally take months to complete - getting content into the site. It sucks! A lot.more
This blog was originally published on March 15, 2012, but is still relevant. Enjoy! Technology is full of confusing terms, and building websites is no different. As a developer or as a person in need of a website, you will no doubt encounter a number of acronyms and words that you either don’t understand, don’t want to understand, or that just plain make you want to cry a little bit out of sheer frustration. DNS? PHP? .NET? IIS? Apache? Joomla? Drupal? CMS? IE? FF? The list grows longer and your attention span grows shorter. I’ll not bore you with all of the acronyms now, I’ll just save that for another post. Instead, I want to shed a small ray of sunshine upon a dark corner of confusion.more
I first became involved in website and application development 17 years ago, when it was a fledgling concept with very few rules or established best practices. Back then, the only thing marketers felt they needed was an “online brochure” that covered who they were, what products and services they offered, and provided contact information just in case someone was interested in calling or emailing.more
So, you've made the decision to change CMS (content management system) platforms. Just like buying a new house, packing up and moving can be an exciting, yet frightening experience. With a new strategy, a new admin panel and a fresh new design, it's easy to lose sight of one critical piece: content. It doesn’t matter if you're transitioning to Wordpress, Magento, BigTree or any other CMS, these tips will prepare you for a successful move! And, more importantly, let you show off to your colleagues.more
Think about the last time you glanced at your smartphone screen. Was it five minutes ago? Ten? Perhaps even twenty? Today's adults are as glued to their mobile devices as their teenage kids, constantly responding to text messages, searching for content, and checking emails. This is why responsive website design is critical to your ability to generate leads for your company. Without it, consumers just like you who check their smartphones before they pour their first cup of coffee in the morning won't bother with your site because it doesn't render properly. Worse, they'll hit up your competitors instead.more
Whether you’re creating a new site from scratch or just giving your site a facelift, content on the site can be a challenge to deal with. Inevitably, there is always either too much content or not nearly enough! In this blog post, we won’t be dealing with creating content as much as we’ll be dealing with how to go about organizing your existing content!more
