So how simple is your password? Do you use common patterns like your name and 123, password, or 1234?

Are you guilty of any of these? 

• Use only letters or only numbers
• Use names of spouses, children, girlfriends/boyfriends or pets
• Use phone numbers, Social Insurance Numbers or birth dates
• Use the same word as your log-in for multiple sites, or any variation of it
• Use any word that can be found in the dictionary.  (Yes, even foreign words. There’s a reason they call it dictionary scripts.)
• Use passwords with double letters or numbers.

If so, keep reading! 

There are password generators out there, but let’s face it, the passwords they generate are hard to remember. So try some of these helpful hints:

• Substitute letters with characters and numbers. Try using numbers and characters that look like the letters they are replacing. (zero for o, 1 for i, @ for a)

• Use the first letters of the words from your favorite saying or song. So the saying  “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” turns into 1y@dwy@dy@Gwy@G

• Use passwords that are at least eight characters in length. Use a combination of letters, numbers and keyboard characters. And alternate between lower and upper-case letters. 

Save yourself from the grief of being hacked.  Take the time to improve the security of your passwords.

George Orwells’ 1984 Big Brother needs to be recast as an ad man. My wife recently sent me a snapshot of a website page that included an article and Google Ads beside it. The article was about teachers; the ads were about web accessibility. Nowhere in the article was there any mention of web accessibility. But, what we do know is that as part of our business, we build accessible websites and Google knew enough to serve related ads up to her. What’s impressive and creepy at the same time is that they served up the ads not on Google’s search results page but on the newspaper’s website.

So here’s the question:  as an advertiser, are you fine with the way online advertising is going? What about as a consumer?

As the year comes to an end, we here at CMS Web Solutions central tend to look back and review the year. We love to collect data in order to uncover what works and what doesn’t. I must confess that if we hadn’t taken a closer look at our marketing data, we probably would have continued down the same path next year. What was surprising was that marketing that worked well just a few years ago no longer worked as well. As a result of our review we are shifting resources to those marketing vehicles that actually created measurable results. (If you are falling down a bit on the measuring front, contact us and I’ll share which measuring tools we use.)

But I digress. Back to the amazing mind blowing video. After you watch this Ted Talk, please share it with others. (And isn’t it nice to know that the next time you tie your shoes differently, you’ll think of us over here at CMS Web Solutions? Let’s call it an early Christmas present.)

 Asking “how much is a website?” is like asking ”how much is a house?”

 We offer “free” do-it-yourself websites to ones that are thousands of dollars and everything in between. If it’s done properly the return on investment should more than pay for any cost. Just ask our clients.

 Your online presence has many components to it. It’s no longer simply about a website anymore. For example, looking at your current website, it’s not ideally optimized for the search engines, yet I’m sure you’d like the search engines to find your website.

 We start the process by asking:

“Who is the prospective client you are trying to communicate with on the other side of the monitor?”

“How do they typically find companies like yours?”

“What information are they looking for?”

“How do they want to see it?”

 Cost is dictated simply by meeting those objectives.

 There’s more to it, but you get the idea. If your business isn’t unique enough to require a custom approach, we will simply refer you to a boilerplate solution. Why? Because if your only competitive differentiator is price, you better keep your prices low and see if you can outsource production to low labour countries.  But if you do have competitive differentiators, are passionate about what you do and need results, let’s talk. But it will cost what it costs to get the results.

Although whether to engage in social media is different for each business, don’t think just because it’s the latest buzz that it’s the right fit for your business. So how do you know? Ask yourself these 2 questions:

1.     “Do your current and prospective customers actively participate on social media and if yes, which one(s)?”

2.     “Does the projected return your business will receive exceed the investment of your time engaging in social media?”

For our B2B clients, their optimized website, coordinated with newsletters, direct marketing and/or Google ad words campaigns, is still the most effective. Some are having success with LinkedIn.

The nature of B2C businesses lends itself far better to social media. Those experiencing success have incorporated social media into a well-coordinated campaign including web, print, eNewsletters along with some traditional marketing vehicles.  One client whose industry declined 25-30% on average experienced a manageable decline of only 5% through their proactive marketing campaign.

In this current landscape of what seems like unlimited marketing vehicles, we recommend pausing. Regroup. Return to the basics. Spend just a bit of time asking yourself where your customers are engaging. Next, devise a realistic plan that you actually have the time and money to execute. Pick the marketing vehicles that fit and get going.  Put in measuring tools to judge effectiveness. Reallocate resources based on results. It’s that simple. But you have to act and continue acting. The Internet is here to stay and it won’t wait for you.

With the emergence of Internet research tools, a company can capture business they didn’t even know existed. For example, did you know that tools exist that report what volumes of people are searching on certain search strings? (e.g. “portable sawmills Ontario”)

Gas stations locate where the traffic flows, why not use the same philosophy in your industry on the Internet highway?

The returns can be quite dramatic. A manufacturer we worked with had allocated just a few thousand dollars to modernize and optimize their website for the search engines. The result: sales of over $250,000 in 3 months directly related to the website upgrade.

A company’s website has now become a vital part of any business. Those businesses that take their online strategy seriously will be the ones that capture new markets and outperform their unsuspecting competition that are slow to act. What are you waiting for?

Based on actual data, you can then make an informed decision based on fact. Simply move the money to where it’s effective and eliminate those that are not. Websites are incredible data gathering measurement tools. Use them.

What’s this magic tool? It’s simply an accessible website. When a website is built with accessibility in mind, you automatically open up your market to visitors who would otherwise leave your site because they aren’t able to navigate it or get all the information they need from it. Consider these scenarios:

• a person with vision loss who uses screen reader technology to read your site
• a person with limited mobility who uses the keyboard or assistive devices instead of a mouse to navigate the web
• a person with hearing loss who needs a transcript or captioning of audio or video on your website
• a person with a learning disability who may struggle with completing long or complex web forms.

If a revamp of your website is the plans for 2011, make sure accessibility is a key requirement. Taking that step will help you stay ahead of your competition and open up your markets to new possibilities.

Although newspapers and magazines are using them more, they can be used anywhere your customers are looking for information – product packaging, shelf signs, owner’s manuals. Let your imagination loose and put them on t-shirts, billboards or bus advertising.

How do you get a QR code?

One of the easiest tools for generating a QR code for your website is the bit.ly service. In 2 simple steps you can create a QR code that you can include in any of your print materials.

1. Go to bit.ly, enter the URL to the page on your website e.g. www.mydomainname.com and click shorten.
2. Click the Info Page+ link and you’ll see your new QR code and it’s URL on the right side of the page.

Now that you’ve generated the code, just download the image and use it wherever you’d like. As a bonus, you can return to this Info Page to view details on how often the page has been visited.

So, how are you going to use QR codes to drive visitors to your website? We’d love to hear about your success with this great tool.