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Category: Business

  • Kite Dish.com Acquired by Web321

    We are proud to pick up the mantle of Kite Dish. Back in the day, they provided WordPress Maintenance. As they said it, back then:

    Our service provides you a peace of mind with a secure, regularly backed up, bug-free and proactively updated site so you can concentrate more on your business and not on the maintenance of your site.

    In addition to this, you have access to on-demand support and advice and not bother undergoing the process of seeking and interviewing developer after developer each time you need help or need small fixes done on your site.

    Your monthly subscription covers all work for the maintenance of your site whether that would be security-related, bug-related, updates-related and other general maintenance work.

    They served over 300 great businesses and enterprises:

  • Eleven Ways Digital Marketing Can Help Your Business Thrive

    Eleven Ways Digital Marketing Can Help Your Business Thrive

    The 21st century has ushered in an era of innovation that has significantly impacted businesses across the spectrum. Digital marketing, in particular, has emerged as a game changer for many successful enterprises. There is a common misconception that digital marketing is prohibitively expensive and labor-intensive. The truth is that it offers a diverse set of tools and strategies that can be tailored to fit different business objectives and budgets.

    If you are contemplating how digital marketing can turbocharge your business, here are the key advantages of refining your marketing approach.

    Boost Organic Traffic

    One of the most compelling benefits of digital marketing is the enhancement of organic traffic to your website. Organic search is particularly powerful as it yields results that are not only superior but also sustainable compared to other marketing methods.

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is pivotal in increasing organic traffic. If your business operates in Edmonton, Canada, for instance, you can explore the plethora of local SEO services that Edmonton offers. Since SEO is an evolving field due to continuous algorithm updates, it is prudent to engage experts for regular audits and optimizations.

    Pinpoint and Engage Your Audience

    Understanding your target audience is fundamental in any marketing strategy. Consider:

    • What is the age range of your prospective customers?
    • Are they price-sensitive or do they prioritize features and value?
    • What resonates with them in terms of humor and communication style?
    • What aspects of your products or services do they find most appealing?

    By analyzing this information, you can craft messages that will resonate with your audience.

    Digital marketing provides advanced targeting options, allowing you to narrow down and engage with potential customers based on age, interests, browsing behavior, and more. Companies such as Boom Innovation Agency have streamlined this process, enabling businesses to focus on prospects with higher conversion potential.

    Moreover, social media is a potent tool in the digital marketing arsenal. It offers businesses the opportunity to establish a presence on various platforms and interact with their audience. Alongside maintaining your website, it is crucial to actively manage your social media accounts and engage with your followers for optimal exposure.

    Expand Your Reach Globally

    Digital marketing dismantles geographic barriers, empowering businesses to connect with audiences worldwide. By tailoring content and campaigns to various regions and cultures, you can penetrate new markets and cater to a diverse clientele.

    Employ Data-Driven Strategies

    Digital marketing provides access to analytics and data-tracking tools, enabling businesses to gather insights into customer behavior and trends. Utilize this data to make informed decisions, optimize campaigns, and create products or services that meet the needs of your target audience.

    Personalize Your Campaigns

    Digital marketing platforms allow you to customize content and offers based on individual customer preferences and interactions. This heightened level of personalization enhances customer experiences and boosts conversion and retention rates.

    Cultivate a Community and Brand Advocates

    By producing engaging content and fostering interaction on digital platforms, you can build a community around your brand. Establishing an emotional connection with your audience helps in creating brand advocates who enthusiastically endorse your products or services to others, thereby amplifying your reach and reputation.

    Leverage Digital Agility

    Digital marketing campaigns can be swiftly adjusted in response to market trends, customer feedback, or external events. This flexibility ensures your business remains adaptive and attuned to the evolving demands of your audience.

    Adopt Cost-Effective Advertising

    Digital marketing has revolutionized traditional advertising. Rather than committing to a fixed cost without a clear understanding of the outcomes, digital marketing offers various pricing models, such as pay-per-impression or pay-per-action. Moreover, platforms like Google AdWords, LinkedIn, and Facebook often provide discounts, allowing you to stretch your advertising budget.

    Enhance Client Engagement and Loyalty

    Digital marketing tools offer insights into how audiences interact with your content. By employing these tools effectively, you can elevate audience

     

  • Finding and Fixing Broken Links In WordPress

    Finding and Fixing Broken Links In WordPress

    Broken links can have a detrimental impact on the user experience of a WordPress site. When users encounter a broken link, they are presented with a frustrating 404 not-found error message.

    There are various reasons why broken links occur on a WordPress website. For instance, a link may become broken if the target page has been modified, relocated, or no longer exists. This resource aims to guide you on effectively addressing broken links in WordPress. You will gain an understanding of what broken links are, their causes, and the proper methods for fixing them on your WP website.

    Understanding Broken Links in WordPress

    Definition

    “Broken links” refers to links within a WordPress site that direct users to non-existent pages. For example, if there are two pages, A and B, and Page A links to the non-existent Page B, users will encounter an error message when they click on that link.

    Impacts

    Broken links can significantly impact a website beyond just the user experience. They can also negatively affect SEO, as users can’t access valid pages when clicking on broken links. Additionally, broken internal links (links between two pages on the same website) can generate errors in Google Search Console, negatively affecting the site’s rankings on search engine results pages.

    Next Steps

    Besides user experience and SEO, broken links can impact a site’s indexing on search engines. Once you have fixed broken links on your WordPress site, submitting re-crawl requests to Google can help you resolve broken link issues and improve the overall performance of your website.

    Causes of Broken Links

    Improper Management of Pages in WordPress

    Broken links occur when a page’s URL has been changed in WordPress. Moving a target page from one location to another can create broken links on a WordPress website. While WordPress can automatically handle some broken links by redirecting them, it requires attention when there is no redirection in place.

    Sometimes, the permalinks system can fail, making everything except the front page inaccessible. Luckily, restoring the permalinks in this scenario is easy. From WP Admin, go to Settings > Permalinks. Save the default permalink settings that you find, and voila! The permalinks should work again.

    Other permalink errors, such as those caused by website migration or hacking, take a little more work to fix.

    Website Migration

    During website migration, which involves transferring a site from one host to another, issues such as backup restoration, DNS problems, SSL installation, and HTTPS redirection can result in broken links on your WP site.

    Hacking Incidents

    Hacking incidents can also lead to broken links on a WordPress website. For instance, when manual backdoors are planted, the site’s pages are removed, or the website experiences defacement, broken links can be created. Conducting a malware scan on your site or seeking assistance from WordPress security professionals can help mitigate such issues.

    Addressing Broken Links in WordPress – Step by Step

    STEP 1 – Identifying Broken Links

    Google Search Console is an excellent tool for identifying broken links. If you have configured GSC for your WordPress site, it will show you broken links over time. Logging into GSC and navigating to Indexing > Pages will display a list of broken links on your site. You can export this list for further analysis and action.

    STEP 2 – Resolving Broken Links

    To fix broken links, you need to edit and update the links in your WordPress content. After obtaining the list of broken links in GSC, click on each link to see if it triggers a 404 Not Found error. Manually making changes can be challenging, so seeking professional assistance may be beneficial.

    When updating a broken link, consider the following:

    • If the target page is missing, link it to a different but relevant page on your WordPress site.
    • If the target page’s URL has changed, configure redirects for the old URL using a WordPress plugin like Redirects. WordPress should automatically set redirects when a user updates a URL for a page or post.
    • If a page links to a page that requires login access, ensure you change the target to a relevant, freely accessible page on your site.
  • Clearing Your Cache In WordPress

    Clearing Your Cache In WordPress

    Caching is a storage of the presentation of data. Caching is vital to contain how much processing power is needed to run your site. It can also be a pain when a cache holds onto old information.

    When a user is looking at a database driven web page, there’s a high chance that the view is a cached copy built through processing intensive work on the web server. Caching happens in a number of places:

    Web Application Caching

    Most web apps and content management systems are database-centric. They hold everything in its database and assemble web pages from that data. That’s flexible, but processing intensive. The more intensive the page build, the longer it takes and the fewer requests can be handled.

    We are most experienced at finessing WordPress through caching. We commonly add caching plugins (WP Fastest Cache, Total W3 Cache, WP Rocket, Hummingbird, etc.). When a user complains that they are seeing old content, the WordPress administrator can log into their site, go to the caching plugin settings and “Clear Cache” or similar. This impacts speed and performance in the short term as the cache of pre-built pages is assembled.

    Themes like Divi also have some aspect of caching as well. When trying to refresh the view, double check if your theme has any caching functionality that needs to be cleared out.

    Web Server Caching

    Some Internet service providers offer caching in their hosting. The can be a big win when it comes to the performance.

    Clear Siteground Caching

    To clear caching in a SiteGround account, you can follow these steps:

    1. Log in to your SiteGround hosting account.
    2. Navigate to the “Websites” tab or a similar section, depending on the SiteGround interface version you are using.
    3. Find the website for which you want to clear the cache and click on its corresponding control panel or management options.
    4. To manually flush the Dynamic Cache, follow these steps:
    1. Navigate to the “Speed” section and click on “Caching.”
    2. In the Caching settings, find the “Dynamic Cache” option.
    3. Within the Dynamic Cache tab, locate the desired website URL.
    4. Click on the “Flush Cache” icon under the Actions column for that URL.

    By following these steps, you will be able to manually flush the Dynamic Cache for the specific website URL.

    The exact steps and terminology may vary depending on your specific SiteGround interface version and configuration. If you have trouble finding the caching settings or clearing the cache, it’s recommended to consult SiteGround’s official documentation or reach out to their support team for specific guidance tailored to your hosting environment.

    Clear A2 Caching

    A2 Hosting itself doesn’t do server level caching. Changes have to happen in the applications (ie. WordPress).

    CDN / Service Provider Caching

    ISPs used to be notorious for holding onto old information: content, nameserver records, etc.. They have largely stopped this practice. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) still do this as a matter of course.

    Most CDNs have a purge option. It will impact your performance in the short term, but it guarantees a fresh view of your content.

    Clear Cloudflare’s Cache

    To clear the cache at Cloudflare, you can follow these steps:

    1. Log in to your Cloudflare account.
    2. Select the domain or website for which you want to clear the cache from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.
    3. In the top menu, click on the “Caching” tab.
    4. Under the “Configuration” section, you’ll find the “Purge Cache” option.
    5. Click on the “Purge Everything” button to clear the entire cache for your website.

    Cloudflare will initiate the cache clearing process, and it may take a few moments to complete. After the process finishes, the cache for your website will be cleared, and subsequent requests will pull fresh content from your origin server.

    Purging the cache at Cloudflare removes all cached files for the selected domain, so use this option carefully. Additionally, Cloudflare provides more granular cache clearing options, such as purging specific files or directories, which can be accessed from the same “Caching” section if you need more control over the cache clearing process.

    Web Browser Caching

    Web browsers aim to deliver the best results– the best performance and the best speed. Web browsers cache visited pages to make your next visit better. It also leaves your browser holding onto old information. Clearing your web browser cache is usually what it takes to clear up your caching issue.

    Clearing the Browser Cache in Firefox

    To clear your cache in Firefox, you can follow these steps:

    1. Open Firefox on your computer.
    2. Click on the menu button in the top-right corner of the browser window. It looks like three horizontal lines.
    3. From the dropdown menu, select “Options” or “Preferences.” This will open the Firefox settings page.
    4. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Privacy & Security.”
    5. Scroll down to the “Cookies and Site Data” section.
    6. Click on the “Clear Data” button.
    7. In the dialog box that appears, make sure the checkbox next to “Cached Web Content” is selected.
    8. You can also select other items you want to clear, such as cookies or browsing history.
    9. Click on the “Clear” button to start the clearing process.
    10. Firefox will remove the cached data, and a confirmation message will appear when it’s done.

    After completing these steps, your cache will be cleared in Firefox. This process helps improve browser performance and ensures you see the latest version of websites when you visit them.

    Clearing the SSL Cache in Firefox

    To clear the SSL state in Firefox, follow these steps:

    1. On the History menu, click Clear Recent History. The Clear All History dialog appears.
    2. In the Time range-to-clear list box, select Everything.
    3. Select the Active Logins check box.
    4. Click Clear Now.

    Clearing the Browser Cache in Chrome

    To clear the browser cache in Google Chrome, you can follow these steps:

    1. Open Chrome on your computer.
    2. Click on the menu button in the top-right corner of the browser window. It looks like three vertical dots.
    3. From the dropdown menu, hover over “More Tools” and then click on “Clear browsing data.” This will open the Clear browsing data settings.
    4. Alternatively, you can directly access the Clear browsing data settings by using the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + Delete (Windows) or Command + Shift + Delete (Mac).
    5. In the Clear browsing data settings, you’ll see a list of options. Ensure that the “Cached images and files” checkbox is selected. You can also select other items you want to clear, such as browsing history, cookies, etc.
    6. Choose the time range for which you want to clear the cache. You can select “All time” if you want to clear the entire cache.
    7. Click on the “Clear data” button to start the clearing process.
    8. Chrome removes the cached data. A confirmation message will appear when it’s done.

    Once you’ve completed these steps, the cache in Google Chrome will be cleared. This helps improve browser performance and ensures you see the most up-to-date versions of websites when you visit them.

    Clearing the SSL Cache in Google Chrome

    To clear the SSL state in Chrome, follow these steps:

    1. Click the Settings icon (three bars), and then click Settings.
    2. Click Show advanced settings.
    3. Under Network, click Change proxy settings. The Internet Properties dialog box appears.
    4. Click the Content tab.
    5. Click Clear SSL state, and then click OK.

    Clearing the Browser Cache in MS Edge

    To clear the browser cache in Microsoft Edge, follow these steps:

    1. Open Microsoft Edge on your computer.
    2. Click on the menu button in the top-right corner of the browser window. It looks like three horizontal dots.
    3. From the dropdown menu, click on “Settings.” This will open the Edge settings page.
    4. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Privacy, search, and services.”
    5. Scroll down to the “Clear browsing data” section.
    6. Click on the “Choose what to clear” button.
    7. Ensure that the “Cached data and files” checkbox is selected. You can also select other items you want to clear, such as browsing history, cookies, etc.
    8. Choose the time range for which you want to clear the cache. You can select “All time” if you want to clear the entire cache.
    9. Click on the “Clear” button to start the clearing process.
    10. Edge will remove the cached data, and a confirmation message will appear when it’s done.

    Clearing the SSL Cache in MS Edge

    To clear the SSL state in Internet Explorer, follow these steps:

    1. To access the Delete Browsing History dialog:
      • If you are using Internet Explorer 8, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
      • If you are using Internet Explorer 9 or 10, click the gear icon, and then click Internet options.
    2. Click the Content tab.
    3. Click Clear SSL state, and then click OK.

     

    Clearing the Browser Cache in The Safari Browser

    To clear the browser cache in Safari, you can follow these steps:

    1. Open Safari on your Mac.
    2. Click on the “Safari” menu in the top-left corner of the screen.
    3. From the dropdown menu, select “Preferences.” This will open the Safari preferences window.
    4. In the preferences window, click on the “Privacy” tab.
    5. At the bottom of the Privacy tab, click on the “Manage Website Data” button. This will open a new window displaying website data stored in Safari.
    6. You can use the search bar to find specific websites, or scroll through the list to locate the website data you want to remove.
    7. To remove data for a specific website, select it and click on the “Remove” button. You can also use the “Remove All” button to clear all website data.
    8. Safari will ask for confirmation before removing the selected website data. Click on “Remove Now” to proceed.
    9. Close the website data window and the preferences window.

    Once you’ve completed these steps, the cache for the selected websites will be cleared in Safari. This helps improve browser performance and ensures you see the most up-to-date versions of websites when you visit them.

    Clearing the SSL Cache in Safari

    To clear SSL certificates in Safari on macOS, you can follow these steps:

    1. Open Safari on your Mac.
    2. Click on the “Safari” menu in the top-left corner of the screen.
    3. From the dropdown menu, select “Preferences.” This will open the Safari preferences window.
    4. In the preferences window, click on the “Privacy” tab.
    5. At the bottom of the Privacy tab, click on the “Manage Website Data” button. This will open a new window displaying website data stored in Safari.
    6. In the website data window, search for “Certificates” using the search bar at the top right.
    7. Select the SSL certificates you want to remove. You can select multiple certificates by holding down the Command key while clicking.
    8. Click on the “Remove” button.
    9. Safari will ask for confirmation before removing the selected SSL certificates. Click on “Remove Now” to proceed.
    10. Close the website data window and the preferences window.

    After completing these steps, the selected SSL certificates will be cleared in Safari. This can be useful if you want to remove outdated or problematic SSL certificates from your browser.

    NONE OF THIS WORKS?!?!!

    You did all of the above but none of it works? There is one last way to get a fresh view of your content: add junk to your URL.

    For example:

    https://web321.co/ would give you a cached copy of our web page.

    https://web321.co?sfig (the ?slfg tacked on the end) makes the same page come from a fresh URL and a fresh URL is not in the cache, so you get the fresh view of the page.

  • How We Would Pitch A WordPress Support Plan

    How We Would Pitch A WordPress Support Plan

    We have a solid plan for how to deliver WordPress support for clients who run a service based business.

    Client Spec

    In some cases, a website is one part of a larger marketing strategy, and may have been maintained for a time. For those who are looking to refocus their strategy Web321’s Wordpress tech support provides reliable, experienced help with website maintenance. We offer help keeping its website operational (software updates, malware scans, backups, uptime monitoring, etc.) and ongoing assistance with small content updates.

    Proposed Solution

    Web321 recommends our Website Maintenance Plan. The subscription includes the following maintenance & support services:

    • daily site backups, stored for 90 days
    • uptime monitoring & emergency site recovery
    • weekly core, theme & plugin updates
    • daily security scans & malware cleanup service
    • powerful firewall protection
    • access to our library of premium plugins, themes & stock assets
    • Google Analytics, Search Console and Page Speed setup & reporting
    • ongoing SEO & site speed optimization as needed
    • email tech support help desk
    • unlimited small (30-minute) tasks (e.g. content updates, add new posts, quicklink and dashboard updates, document uploads, image optimization, plugin installation, etc.)
    • discounted development rate for service requests outside the scope of our Website Maintenance Plan
    • weekly website status reports

    The price for this plan is $321/month or $2,999/year (plus GST).

    Upon signing up for the Website Maintenance Plan, Web321 will grant staff access to our service request system via email and web portal. We answer all non-emergency requests within one business day, providing an estimate for time to completion. If the request falls outside the scope of the Website Maintenance Plan, we will advise and provide a quote to complete the work.

    Our client will also be provided with a priority phone number to text or call in case of an outage or other critical business failure of its website.

    Do you need help with managing your WordPress Website?

  • Building A Website For An Electrical Contractor

    For an electrical contracting company, we help by creating a new website to replace an existing legacy infrastructure that is bound to hosing and support. WordPress frees up a website and to be hosted on the best platform available. Our designs are clean, responsive, informative and user-friendly.

    Client Spec

    In the case of the spec we recieved, the existing website contained the following functions & features which will need to be duplicated by the new site:

    • ~17 informational pages detailing company services & projects
      • We suggest possible addition of child pages providing more information on individual services & projects
    • Blog page & migration of ~25 posts
    • Contact us page
    • Chatbot integration
    • Social media follow buttons
    • Newsletter signup area

    Proposed Solution

    Web321 proposes to build using WordPress, the most powerful, elegant content management system (CMS) available on the web today. WordPress currently powers over a third of all websites on the internet, including big names like Disney, Sony & Target.

    The site will be themed using the Divi theme system (the most widely-used premium WordPress theme and website building framework). Divi is a user-friendly, endlessly flexible website scaffolding & design system that allows Web321 to build sites faster and with built-in responsiveness for all screen sizes.

    As with all our builds, Web321 will ensure that the site is secure, easy to update, high-performance and search-engine compliant. To create the desired functionality, Web321 will deploy the following integrations and premium plugins on the site:

    We include as part of our development & maintenance services access to our premium plugin licenses as long as you remain a Web321 subscriber. Should you choose to part ways with Web321 at the end of your contract, you will need to renew these licenses at your own cost going forward.

    Proposed Budget

    Web321’s payment model allows clients to get a design discount based on the duration of the support commitment. The support agreement bundles in the cost of your premium plugins, site maintenance and content update fees.

    WordPress support plans include the following maintenance features:

    • daily site backups, stored for 90 days
    • uptime monitoring & immediate site recovery
    • ongoing core, theme & plugin updates
    • 24/7 security monitoring & malware cleanup
    • Google Analytics and Google Page Speed setup & reporting
    • keyword tracking for up to 50 chosen keywords
    • ongoing SEO & site speed optimization as needed
    • unlimited small (30-minute) tasks (content updates, add new RVs, image optimization, plugin installation, etc.)

    If you’d like to see everything that’s included in this plan you can view it here: https://web321.co/services/plans-pricing/

    When the contract term is up, you’d have the option to keep it going on a month-to-month basis, and as part of that, we would include a complimentary complete design refresh on the site every 3 years. Otherwise, you could terminate the contract and either move maintenance in-house, to a provider of your choice, or we could continue to provide a la carte support at our current support rate.

    We do strongly recommend some kind of ongoing site support, as neglected software updates can leave your site open to exploits, and a lack of proper backups & security checks can mean months of lost updates and work by your staff if there’s a problem.

    For companies with legacy systems, we wanted to advise that, should a client choose to leave Web321 before the contract is up, our client will be able to take their site to another provider after paying out the balance of fees. WordPress sites are built to be extremely portable and can be hosted almost anywhere. 

    Since we operate on a lease-to-own model, we will simply bill you for the remaining balance of your website design fee (available from us at any time upon request) and the site and all its assets will be released to you. See our FAQ for more info on this as well as how our design and revision process works to ensure you’re satisfied.

  • How Would We Tackle a Pilates Website Rebuild

    We’re been asked several times about how we would re-design a pilates or fitness website. Here’s a quick rundown of what we recommend. We propose the following features & functions:

    • Move site hosting to WPPro.ca (managed, optimized WordPress hosting).
    • Update the theme to Divi and use it to create a more engaging design. The current site has small images and minimal branding (ie. a small logo). We will add a lot more visual impact to the design.
    • Re-add the existing content to work with the new theme.
    • Re-organize the content and redirect traffic so that old links will take visitors to the new content. Introduce taxonomy to connect and relate blog posts to each other.
    • Re-phrase some elements to work better for SEO and audience engagement.
    • Implement a solution to let people either book online or see your schedule.
    • Highlight a “Get Started” path for users who are convinced and just want to book a session.
    • Add in contact forms that send inquiries to you.
    • Teacher training section: use the publications as part of the narrative of your expertise and finish the page with a lead capture form for people who want to get in touch.
    • Add Yoast SEO. Fill out meta titles, meta descriptions and social share images.
    • Use better images and video: new photos from PSP; and selective stock images and videos.
    • Add a “Success Stories” page that works like “Testimonials” as told from the PSP perspective.
    • Use Success Stories and Testimonials elements throughout the site to give people more conviction and trust in your expertise.
    • Add a knowledge base of pilates terms and concepts using the WPKnowledgeBase plugin.
    • Do some reputation repair; ie. update third-party references to point to your new address.

    Proposed Solution

    The site will be themed using the Divi theme system (the most widely-used premium WordPress theme and website building framework). Divi is a user-friendly, endlessly flexible website scaffolding & design system that allows Web321 to build sites faster and with built-in responsiveness for all screen sizes.

    As with all our builds, Web321 will ensure that the site is highly secure, easy to update, and high-performance. To create the desired functionality, Web321 will deploy the following integrations and premium plugins on the website:

    • Gravity Forms & Advanced Custom Fields – allows a more dynamic collection and display of information on the site, and enables the building of the custom dashboard for staff
    • Knowledge Base – store concepts and references that others will find useful.
    • Google Analytics – allows tracking and analysis of staff usage of the site

    For the optional social media integration features, we can deploy Smash Balloon’s suite of social media plugins.

    We include as part of our development & maintenance services access to our premium plugin licenses if you become a Web321 Maintenance Plan subscriber (see below). The hosting would be included with your Web321 subscription. Should you choose to part ways with Web321 in the future, you will need to renew your hosting and plugin licenses at your own cost going forward.

    We would follow up the design with maintenance.

    Maintenance Option

    When your site is complete and launched, you have the option to enter an ongoing maintenance contract. For your level of service needs, we recommend our Web321 Maintenance Plan at a cost of $321/month or $2999/year.

    The Web321 maintenance plan includes the following services:

    • daily site backups, stored for 90 days
    • uptime monitoring & emergency site recovery
    • weekly core, theme & plugin updates
    • daily security scans & malware cleanup service
    • powerful firewall protection
    • access to our library of premium plugins, themes & stock assets
    • Google Analytics, Search Console and Page Speed setup & reporting
    • ongoing SEO & site speed optimization as needed
    • email tech support help desk
    • unlimited small (30-minute) tasks (e.g. content updates, add new posts, quicklink and dashboard updates, document uploads, image optimization, plugin installation, etc.)
    • discounted future development rate of $150/hr (from $200/hr)
    • weekly website status reports

    If you’d like to see everything that’s included in this plan you can view it here: https://web321.co/our-services/website-maintenance/

    You can choose to terminate the maintenance contract and either move maintenance in-house, to a provider of your choice, or we could continue to provide a la carte support at our rate.

    We do strongly recommend some kind of ongoing site support, as neglected software updates can leave your site open to exploits, and a lack of proper backups & security checks can mean months of lost updates and work by your staff if there’s a problem.

  • Web321 Won the 2023 ICCC-KFC Recipe For Success

    Web321 Won the 2023 ICCC-KFC Recipe For Success

    We’re excited to share that we won the $30,000 CAD grant through the ICCC-KFC Recipe for Success Program! Thank you to Inner City Capital Connections and KFCCanada for the opportunity to participate in the ICCC program and receive this grant. We look forward to using it to help our business continue to grow!

    The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) is a nonprofit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. Their mission is to drive economic prosperity in under-resourced communities by supporting and promoting inner-city businesses.

    Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) is one of several programs offered by ICIC. It was launched in 2005 to address the specific challenges faced by small business owners in inner-city areas, such as limited access to capital, networks, and business expertise.

    The ICCC program is open to businesses of all industries and stages, from early-stage startups to established companies. However, the program prioritizes businesses that are based in or serve under-resourced communities, employ a diverse workforce, and have a demonstrated commitment to social impact.

    The program is entirely tuition-free for accepted participants, thanks to support from corporate and philanthropic partners.

    The curriculum for the ICCC program covers a wide range of business topics, including strategy, marketing, finance, operations, and leadership. Participants are encouraged to select the modules that are most relevant to their business goals and challenges. In addition to the online learning modules and coaching, the program also includes peer networking opportunities and access to a national alumni network.

    According to ICIC, businesses that complete the ICCC program see a massive average revenue growth within two years. In addition, participants have reported increased confidence, improved strategic thinking, and expanded networks as a result of the program. We can attest to that. The program helped us build new skills, answer provocative questions about business and our business model. As part of the course work, our CEO, Erin DeWolfe, built a winning slide deck to speak to the course of our business and our plans for the future!

    If you’re a small business owner, we encourage you to learn more and apply for the ICCC Recipe for Success Program here: apply.iccapitalconnections.org!

  • How to Add aria-label And alt Tags to Your Divi Search Bar

    Some of the code in Divi isn’t hooked into WordPress’ filter and action hooks. A good example: the menu system, especially the Search box. It needed WCAG descriptive tags and labels for the search open and close button.

    The et_core_esc_previously() Function

    et_core_esc_previously() is a function that is used in the Divi theme from Elegant Themes. The purpose of this function is to sanitize input data by escaping special characters, such as quotes and angle brackets, to prevent potential security vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

    The function takes a single parameter, which is the data to be sanitized. It then applies a series of filters to the data to escape any characters that could potentially be used for malicious purposes. The sanitized data is then returned by the function.
    The et_core_esc_previously() function is one of the Divi core functions. In the code base, it checked to see if the function as already been defined. If it has, it simply passes through the value. For the sake of adding labels, I added a custom version of this function my child theme’s functions.php file (see below). I looked for a string that surrounds where I want to add in the aria-label and alt tag. The str_replace() function was used to find-replace labels changes into place.

    if(!(function_exists('et_core_esc_previously'))) {
   function et_core_esc_previously( $passthru ) {
       $passthru = str_replace('class="et_pb_menu__icon et_pb_menu__close-search-button"></button>', 'class="et_pb_menu__icon et_pb_menu__close-search-button" alt="close search" aria-label="close search"></button>', $passthru);
       $passthru = str_replace('et_pb_menu__search-button"></button>', 'et_pb_menu__search-button" alt="open search" aria-label="open search"></button>', $passthru);
       return $passthru;
   }
}

    What is WCAG?

    WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: a set of guidelines from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

    The guidelines are organized into three levels of conformance: A, AA, and AAA. Level A includes the most basic guidelines for web accessibility, while level AAA includes the most advanced guidelines. Achieving level AA compliance is considered the industry standard for web accessibility.

    WCAG guidelines cover a wide range of topics, including text alternatives for non-text content, keyboard accessibility, color contrast, language markup, and navigation. By following these guidelines, website owners can ensure that their content is accessible to people with disabilities, including those who are blind or visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, or have physical or cognitive disabilities.

    In many countries, adherence to the WCAG guidelines is legally required for government and public sector websites. Even for private sector websites, compliance with WCAG is becoming increasingly important to ensure that all users can access web content. Best of all: it’s a set of good practices. WCAG compliant sites attract more visitors. A WCAG compliant site speaks more clearly to search engine spiders and AI agents.

     

    How did I find this?

    The starting point: the output. From there, I looked backwards. I looked at the HTML and found the ‘close-search-button’ phrase. I searched all of the Divi parent theme files for that phrase. Once found, I looked for the function that called that code. I found the function that called that function, et_core_esc_previously(). This function is referenced a number of times, so it’s a decent function to work with the get the HTML to output different code.

  • Why People Like Elementor (but we still don’t)

    The TLDR: There is no real comparison between Elementor and Divi; however, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Elementor is the best option. We use Divi and we love it. For us, Divi can turn out fantastic results.

    Why is Elementor considered better?

    • Unlike Divi, Elementor doesn’t use shortcodes. This means that when you disable the page builder, it doesn’t create a messy code. Although editing content becomes slightly more challenging, the pages remain mostly intact and clean, avoiding unnecessary clutter. We find shortcodes are a really versatile way to control the functionality of a page.
    • In terms of speed, Elementor can outperform Divi during the editing process. In speed tests, Elementor is only slightly slower on the front-end, which can be attributed to variations in server speeds rather than a significant performance difference. The sluggishness of Divi’s editing capabilities and lack of control in the editor make it an undesirable tool. I have encountered difficulties while making even the smallest changes for a client who was already using Divi. We can score very well with Divi sites. It’s about finding and removing bottlenecks.
    • Elementor provides a wide range of free elements in its free version, which is quite impressive. There is an ever growing number of Divi themes and layouts coming out. We often lean on Divi Express for common design elements.
    • Both Elementor and Divi are stable page builders, although Elementor is not considered the most stable option available. We find the Divi page builder’s views are really flexible and allow us to really drill into the design settings.

    Why we like Divi:

    • Aaccording to Elegant Themes website, the creator of Divi, The theme has been downloaded over 6 million times, and is used by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. This makes it one of the most popular WordPress themes available.
    • It uses a clean and intuitive interface
    • Divi offers tremendous value for the money (also comes with a lifetime deal)
    • Use Divi on an unlimited number of websites (no limitations) with a full license.
    • The Divi drag and drop page builder is easy to use.
    • The Divi library is great for the re-use of designs and the linkage of design on distinct pages.
    • It comes bundled with an Extra WordPress theme
    • 100+ templates to choose from at Elegant Themes

    Elementor is more popular. That said, other authoring approaches competing for popularity include the baseline Gutenberg, Classic Editor, Beaver Builder and WP Bakery. Elementor has a great page builder that some developers can use to great effect.

    But what surpasses Elementor? Beaver Builder. While the free version may not offer as many features, the full version of Beaver Builder excels in terms of stability and ease of use, closely matching Elementor. Many feel it outshines both Elementor and Divi by a long way.

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