Everyone knows when a website has been hacked, right? It will have a message saying 'hacked by' – right? Wrong.

The scars might be invisible to the average site visitor and the owner not even know their website has been compromised. Think that little old New Zealand minding it's own business isn't a target? Wrong again.

How do you know if your website has been a victim of an attack ? How do you fix it? And more importantly, how do you prevent it having serious repercussions for your business?

Yes, video can help with your search marketing efforts. 

And video is perfect if you offer something that can be demonstrated visually - from plumbers to home-ware, food and technology.  Here's how.

The topic of FAQs came up in a business networking meeting recently with the comment that they are good for your visibility in Google (i.e. SEO).

They are, but you need to create them with SEO in mind to get the full benefit.

We all want our website to send us tons of business, right?

But achieving this can be a frustratingly elusive goal for many business owners.

Fortunately I'm here to tell you there are proven tactics to work toward achieving it and some of them are contained in this post.

Almost all websites have some kind of imagery on it. Otherwise they look a little, well....boring. And photo images (as opposed to illustrative design elements) are a great way to add impact.

But there is a right way and a wrong way. And sadly the wrong way is all too common.

What you need to get to the top

To get to the top of Google, and we're talking top of the organic (non-paid) search results, you have to convince Google that your site is the best one for whatever it is that the searcher is looking for.

If you operate in a competitive market, just having a great website won't be enough. By competitive, we mean there are more than half a dozen local suppliers in the same industry as you are.  This means they are fighting for the interest of the same audience.

If this is the case you've got to persuade Google that you are better than all of them.

Email spam, form spam and hacking attempts are an annoying reality of doing business on-line.

Around 2012, we noticed a significant increase in the amount of hacking attempts and spam enquiries being received by our client's websites.

We see this as a case of New Zealand catching up with what the rest of the world has been experiencing for some years.

So you've spent months and probably more money than you would have liked to, bringing your new website to life.

So now all you have to do is to sit back and wait the phone calls to come rolling on it - right? Sadly, no.

It has recently been announced that from September 1st, a new top-level domain name (or TLD for short) was going to be available i.e. ".nz"

So it means instead of having www.yourcompany.co.nz you could have www.yourcompany.nz.

The media's coverage have led some businesses to believe that they had to act immediately - but this isn't the case.

Do you have a website that despite being a thing of beauty born out of hours, days, weeks of effort and careful planning is failing to live up to expectations?

It could be your content – and your copy. As web developers and optimisers, we can’t do our job without having something to put on the pages we’re building – in other words, content. And it’s one of the hardest and most time consuming parts of a web development project. This is understandable, because quality content is hard work for most people who don’t do it for a living.

Although it may seem like splitting hairs, if you understand the difference between ‘content’ and ‘copy’, it can make the whole process simpler and faster.

"How much does a website cost?"

A common and reasonable question.

The answer most people get is that "It depends".

And this is correct, but a general rule of thumb would be useful, right?

You'll see it mentioned in many online marketing articles:

Thou Shalt Blog!

Sadly, many people in small business' don't. Which is sad because they are missing out on a really good way to attract visitors to their website.

A blog is a useful, flexible mechanism for adding new content to your site without having to shoe-horn it somewhere into an existing site structure. You can call it 'articles', 'resources' or something similar if you want to. The ability to comment and/or share your posts makes it easier to promote your content and engage with people on the topic.

The first myth on this list was going to be one about having to follow lists of do's and do not's about web design.

A lot of articles and How-To guides on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) include something called Bounce Rate.  It is said that it affects how high up in Google's search results you appear (i.e. your search ranking).

This is not completely correct.  Even though it is a statistic worth paying attention to, the Bounce Rate reported in Google Analytics is not used to calculate where you appear in Google's search results.

You know the saying - "If it looks to good to be true - it is". Or how about "You get what you pay for".

Yet hundreds of business owners are being duped by offers of cheap Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).