I have kids and I know that it is hard to keep them away from YouTube. It is almost like their need to breathe. However, there are some things you can do to keep them safe. While, my older ones that are in middle and high school are like, “listening to random people is just as smart as eating Tide pods” it is still good to talk to younger ones. They might not even realize what they are doing or that it is not a positive thing.

Here are some of the top tips that you can use in regards to internet safety for kids, especially those littles that might not know any better!

Teach Them Internet Safety!

If they’re old enough to learn what they can and cannot do on the internet, then teach them about the dangers of the internet. There are many things lurking behind each of those web pages that many kids do not know about. Let them know they should never give out any personal information about them, where they live or go to school or those close to them. They never know who they are truly talking to.

This is always the first step to internet safety for kids.

Limit Their Time

By limiting their time on the electronics, you’re essentially limiting the amount of exposure that they have to these things. If they are especially young, electronics are not something they absolutely need, unlike older kids that use electronics for school work.

Give an ideal time, such as an hour or two during the day for some down time and the rest of the time they can be creative, read books, play with toys or go outside. This helps keep a healthy balance.

Watch What They are Doing

You want to have an idea of what they are doing while they are online. You want to know where they go and what they watch. By being able to see where they go and what they do, you have a better idea of whether or not they may be exposed to these things.

YouTube says that they have not found any videos offering any of the claims as of yet, but they are doing their best to make sure that any videos that are flagged are looked into as soon as possible.

Parental Control Software

If you really want to go all out and provide the most protection, there are apps that can be installed on various electronic devices that kids use. PC Mag talks about some of the best and what they do, so you can make a more informed choice on which you may want to use for your children.

Scholastic also gives many other awesome tips for keeping kids safe while on the internet, such as brushing up on your own internet knowledge. When you are aware of what might happen or could happen, or what is out there, you have a better idea of what to protect them from.

Aside from the obvious of monitoring your children’s tablets and what they watch, these tips can help. Not everyone has time to skip through every single video your child watches.

Taking precautions and being aware of what is out there, especially with the growing internet around us can help keep everyone safe. Internet safety for kids is a serious topic and one we should all be discussing and sharing tips and tricks with other parents about. Your personal life might be hectic, but keeping your kids safe should be a priority.

The post Internet Safety for Kids: The Top Tips for Parents appeared first on Web Design & Marketing Services.

Organizing for the future is what I always say! I feel that my life is more put together and I can easily manage my time more effortlessly if I am better organized. This means being able to get all of my ducks (or website content in this case) in a row and then go down and cross them off.

If you’re looking to get your ducks in a row, then now is your time to do so. Here are some of the best pointers that I have used to organize my web content and get it ready to go for the weeks, or even months if you’re feeling ambitious, ahead.

Make a Plan

It all goes smoothly when you have a plan, doesn’t it? In my case, that is how I feel. I have to-do lists, plans, and papers full of hopes and dreams everywhere. When you can cross them off as you go down the list, you will not only feel more organized, but more accomplished.

Think Your Website Content Through

Before you go posting everywhere, think your web content through. You should know what you’re going to post on, where, when and how. These are all great starting points when it comes to both blogs and pages that need to be made for the website. Planning ahead, knowing what to expect and thinking it through makes a difference.

Set it Up 

Set up the pages, words, pictures and anything else that you need to have set up. From there, you can be sure that you have time to look it over and then look it over again. You can change and move anything that you want. It is your website, but you also want to make sure that it is set up for usability and not just because you think it looks pretty.

Don’t Publish Just Yet

You don’t want to publish the website just yet once you have everything planned out, written down and ready to go. Give the backlink to someone that you trust. Let them take a look at it to see where you are. This not only gives you a pair of fresh eyes on the website but it also gives you some additional insight on what needs to be done.

Being able to have a game plan at the beginning of a website is a good thing. All too often you might find yourself running around trying to gather the website content, throw it all together and try to come up with something unique. This is not going to work.

Put your voice into it. Work hard at it and stick with it. You want something that is going to be worth looking at, so you have to make sure you organized it right, while also ensuring that you don’t feel overwhelmed.

The post Organizing Website Content for Yourself and Your Readers appeared first on Web Design & Marketing Services.

Making web content great consists of a few different ingredients thrown together and then artistically touched up. We all want to have a quick way to get the most out of the posts that we put up, don’t we?

When you’re throwing together your next great masterpiece, keep these five things in mind. Once you do, you know you have a pretty kick-ass article that you can throw out there for the masses to see. That seems to be the goal of everyone posting something, doesn’t it?

#1 Be Interesting! 

You want to share some insight, we get it but we don’t want to be bored to death (kind of how you’re feeling right now, isn’t it?). When you’re sharing information or you’re speaking to an audience, it is important to be as interesting as you can possibly be. It is going to make a huge difference.

#2 Write for Lazy People

Let’s face it, no one has time to read a 2,000-word thesis article on your favorite stuffed animal. It is just not going to happen. Remember #1, as mentioned above… your stuffed animal is not all that interesting. You want to make your content easy to digest in a scannable format that is pleasing to the eyes.

#3 Know Your Readers!

We have to put this in here because so many people out there actually do not know who their readers are. Are they business people? Are they writers like you? Do they have families, needs, wants and desires? You have to know as much as you can about them so that you can appeal to them. Give them something they actually want when they show up for a good read.

#4 Create Original Web Content

I cannot stress enough how important it is that you do not go alone and steal someone else’s writing. You just shouldn’t, so don’t. You want to come up with something original, unique and completely you. This is why your audience shows up more than likely, so make sure to keep injecting your personality into it each time you write.

They’ll love you more for it.

#5 Proofread then Proofread Again

You want to make sure that you’re handing out something pretty good. It should capture your own style and voice well and it should have less than the normal amount of typos in it. Using a Word processing program or even a grammar checker can help tremendously because it will catch these things before you even do!

Make more out of the content that you put up. The more you stick with these ingredients (or rules, but I wanted to be fancy) the more you’re going to benefit in the end. You want content that is readable, easily digestible and interested. Check, check and check – we got you covered!

Plus, once you got that web content down to a science, you can make sure that your website design is just as great!

The post 5 Ingredients That Make Web Content Great appeared first on Web Design & Marketing Services.

Font Matters with a Business Website

Websites are essentially online portals made up of three elements, text, pictures and video. Of the three, the text is by far the most important. A business’s text explains concepts in-depth and the other pieces on the page serve as resources or an expansion on that explanation. According to Creative Market’s findings, it’s imperative to nail the right font down when you put your website up. If your website is using the wrong font, color or size, you’re missing out on potential visitors whether you know it or not.

Utilize a Sans-Serif Font

After looking at the analysis of Creative Market we were surprised to see that so many of the sites relied on a Sans-Serif typeface, but when you stop to consider the benefits of Sans-Serif it makes sense that so many of the leading online websites would be leveraging this leading type. The major difference between sans-serif and other typefaces is that there are no little feet at the bottom of the letters. That might not seem like much at first, but removing those feet makes a website easier to read when using low-resolution devices like a smartphone.

Choosing the right font option can make your website accessible and more enjoyable to a larger group of people, which is exactly why so many market leaders are relying on top sans-serif fonts like Helvetica, Arial, and Open Sans. If your site uses a font with intricate details or small feet, one of the first things you should do to it switches over to a sans-serif font to make it more accessible to everyone.

Go for a Deep Black Font Color

According to the study by Creative Market fonts closest to black are best for business. When looking over all 1,000 of those top websites, nearly all of the sties relied on pure black for their font color. Some of the sites relied on a dark gray as the font color as well, but pure black, or #000000 for all you hex users out there is the most obvious way to go. Lighter colors might look cool, or create a unique look for your site, but black is the most practical option for serious web owners looking to expand.

Choose a Mid-Level Font Size

Creative Market observed three main font sizes in use on all the websites, 14px, 16px and 13px in that order. There were far more websites out there with a 14px font size than any other. That doesn’t mean that 16px or 13px isn’t any good because they have decent success as well. The findings show that you definitely shouldn’t be going with an 8px font, or a 20px font though. Readability is everything in an online website, and a mid-range font helps ensure that your sites show on full-sized computers as well as mobile devices.

The Takeaway

• Choose the right font for success. Black, 14px, Sans-Serif works best.

Article Length is Important

Next on the web-design checklist should be the length of your content. According to the research covering the top 1,000 businesses, the wordcount to shoot for is 605 words. That’s right in the middle of the range and shows that quantity isn’t the most important factor. These businesses are all wildly successful, and they aren’t relying on 5,000-word articles to achieve that success.

Instead of adding every single detail into your business articles, focus on the important key points, explain things very clearly and rely on branching articles to address topics more closely.

The Takeaway

• Nail your page design, and create brief, top-quality content. Longer isn’t better in the case of article length.

Site Speed is a Real Factor

Have you ever been stuck at a business website where every page loads slowly? It’s infuriating. That’s exactly the opposite of how you want your visitors to feel when loading up one of your business webpages. This is why we weren’t surprised to see that the average website response time of the 1,000 top websites examined in the study was just 1.36 seconds. That’s pretty darned fast, and that means visitors will enjoy a smooth browsing experience.

Business owners need to rely on lightweight themes when building a site so that it loads as fast as possible. Take a website speed test right now and look for ways to decrease your load times if they’re notably higher than the 1.36-second gold-standard.

The Takeaway

• Top websites load quickly. Take action to avoid having a sluggish site.

Page Size Matters

This goes along with site load speeds, but during the Creative Market tests, the average webpage size was just 66,970.0928 bytes, or significantly less than 1Mb. Those findings show that fancy sites aren’t better. Instead, simple web pages that minimize heavy graphics and special features are the industry-standard. Lightweight web pages load faster, and they show up nicely on a wider range of devices. That’s why business owners should go for a simple approach with their own sites.

Check your web page size and try to find ways to minimize it if the size is significantly higher than 1Mb. Bigger is not better in this case, and those bloated pages could be deterring visitors hoping for fast information. Cut the page size down and we guarantee you’ll see faster load times as well.

The Takeaway

• The best websites feature compact pages. Cut down on your own page size for improved customer interaction.

Now you know what the top business owners are doing. It’s time to take all those simple best-practices and apply them to your own business website. Look through the details and make the necessary changes for yourself. It’s worth the effort, we promise!

The post 4 Business Website Design Best Practices Top Businesses are Already Using appeared first on Web Design & Marketing Services.

Many people ask what a content writer is? What can they do for you? How do they help, as compared to doing my website content myself?

Knowing what content writers are and what they do can ultimately help you figure out if they’re the best to go with.

What is a Content Writer?

In order to have a website that can attract an audience, it has to be well written. This is important for your company, but also for those visiting the website. You have to have a voice of your own to show for it. Through the use of a website that has well-written, authoritative, informative information; you can gain this audience.

Web content writers work off of the specifications of the client’s. Whatever you need to have written, these wordsmiths can essentially make it happen, no matter what topic you work in.

Why Use a Content Writer?

So many ask why they’re needed. The first reason being that without the content writer, you’re not going to have content that sells. Whether you’re selling services, selling products or just trying to make your website seen on the internet.

You need to have someone that has a way with words. Those dedicated, full time, long time content writers can provide this type of content for you. These content writers will automatically understand the needs that you have and the information you want to hand out.

Need I say more?

While, I specialize in a wide variety of content writing, I can also provide online marketing skills to help boost your website traffic, to get you seen on the web and also provide those administrative jobs needed to keep up on the views you get.

Contact me today to learn more!

The post What is a Content Writer? appeared first on Web Design & Marketing Services.