News & Advice

Investopedia defines Digital Marketing as “The use of digital channels to market products and services in order to reach consumers.” And since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, it has become the most popular, and effective, method used by marketers to reach...

One of the most frequently-asked SEO-related questions is how long it will take to see actual results. It's not only a common problem, but it's one that can become frustrating for both the site owner and the SEO specialist. When you pay for Google Ads or any other...

When the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990, websites didn’t exist. This means that language in the ADA applied to physical spaces rather than digital ones. In the intervening years, there has been much confusion as to whether or not the ADA is applicable to websites.

Where do all of the digital accessibility rules and regulations come from? As the web evolves so have accessibility guidelines and standards. The most comprehensive guidelines are the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, commonly known as WCAG.

Most of us do not like switching from one webpage to another searching for information. But you have no option when you are presented with limited details on a post. However, if you find all that you need under one roof, you feel relieved. When website visitors get...

At Moore Tech Solutions, we help our clients leverage the power of the internet to grow their businesses. We are passionate about Web Design, Custom Website Development, SEO, and all things digital.  Our team includes seasoned business veterans and full-stack...

A lot of thought goes into your website: it’s design, it’s function and it’s goals. Not to mention all the time planning how to have a successful SEO strategy. But without quality hosting, all of that planning could be for nothing.

Can images help boost your marketing efforts?

Web hosting is one of those things that all websites rely on but few site owners tend to know much about. Website hosting is often chosen as an afterthought, but it is an incredibly important decision for your digital marketing efforts.  If you are a non-technical...

How Does Google My Business Rebranding Affect Small Businesses? It has been quite a season of rebranding, starting with Facebook that changed its name to Meta in late last October. While people were acclimatizing to this big news, Google announced its free local...

As the demand for online shopping continues to stay significantly high, the need for ecommerce developers remains strong. Official statistics tell us that global retail ecommerce sales are $4.28 trillion as of the moment. Those staggering numbers still have room for...

At Moore Tech Solutions, we help businesses grow using the power of the internet. We’re a digital marketing company that focuses on web design, custom website development, and SEO, but we can provide solutions for everything about your digital presence. We specialize...

Website design and development is both an art and an exercise of rigid discipline. Indeed, visual appeal plays a significant role in attracting readers, but that is only half of the story. Once site visitors have been attracted to your website you need to add value to...

At Moore Tech Solutions, we try to encourage our clients to become familiar with their websites once they have been built and launched. Not dissimilar to owning a car, a website owner should take a bit of time to just poke around to see what basic parts they have....

If the Coronavirus has taught us anything it is that “essential” has staying power. Amidst the challenges of trying to preserve one’s health, trying to be socially responsible, and trying to not seem too casual or too dramatic, we also have to deal with the question...

Every industry is now impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most businesses are experiencing the confusion of whether they should remain open, change their hours or close temporarily. Some areas are issuing orders that only allow essential businesses such as grocery...

Google is now charging for using its mapping services, but it gives you a credit to pay for most or all of the quota. If you have a standard website with average traffic then it will probably not use enough resources to actually get billed. However, Google wants your...

Adding links to your Instagram story can have a huge impact on your conversion rate – that is, it will help significantly to turn your views into actual money! You can add to your story, post new photos, and even go live, but if your audience has nowhere to go, how...

As companies try to reach out further to a wider audience, website development has become even more in-demand in this past decade. Because a growing number of people rely on search engines to locate needs and research information, website development is continuously...

Can you believe that Moore Tech Solutions has been serving our clients for over 15 years? Where does the time go? After designing and building hundreds of websites for clients, not only in Birmingham Alabama, but throughout the United States, we have been honored to help our website clients expand out across the web.

If you login to your administrator’s panel you may notice that your website has messages for you about available updates. While, in some cases, updating may only produce a few bug corrections and minor improvements, in many cases it includes security patches. Whenever a new exploit is found (and new exploits are found everyday) a security measure has to be written to patch over the vulnerability. As long as there are hackers in the world there will be updates. And, beyond that, as long as technology continues to improve and change there will always be updates.

So what does that mean for you? It means that we have to work with you to develop an update strategy that best fits your needs and your budget.

We feel that it is our responsibility to make you aware that updates are going to be a constant need in order to maintain a website that is free from corruption.

We also feel that it is your choice to decide how often you want to have your website updated.

So, you are sitting in your office trying to get caught up on your never-ending pile of work and all of a sudden you get an official looking email from Google letting you know about their new GDPR policies. The first thing you think to yourself is, “What is GDPR and how does it affect me?”. Well, that is a mighty good question, one that many American companies are going to be asking of themselves over the next few weeks as we get closer to May 25th, the official deadline for GDPR compliance. Read on so that we can help you to navigate the murky waters of the GDPR, what it means to you, and who is affected by it.

What is the GDPR?

In an effort to help citizens of the EU, new data privacy and protection regulations are going to be enforced through the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The goal of the GDPR is to strengthen and unify data protection for citizens of the EU, whether they visit a EU based website or a website based abroad.

In an earlier post we discussed the fact that Google is using HTTPS as a ranking signal.   This means that sites connecting to the web via HTTPS might fare better in search results than those connected just via HTTP.  

Not too long ago, customers would look through paper phone directories when looking for a business.  Currently most people use online searches to find the business they are looking for. 50 percent of customers will typically visit a business they have found through a mobile search within one day. 

When is the last time you need to find something but simply can’t spot it? Whether it is a car key, a cell phone, or a destination on the old-fashioned map, not being able to find what you’re looking for can be extremely frustrating.

Angie’s List has recently removed their paywall. This means that you can now become a member without paying their annual fee. Also, reviews are now accessible to the general public. Now that reviews can be seen by all, not just paying users, what actions should you consider?

Have you ever noticed that when you save some websites to your phone’s Home screen that some websites have cool icons while others either use a mashed up screen shot or just plain placeholder image? Wouldn’t it be cool if your viewers could download a direct link to your website and place it on their home screens? Well this tip is going to show you how to do that.

If you follow these steps you can create and link to a cool icon for your website and learn how to download it to your phone’s home screen!

Last April Google announced that sites which were mobile friendly would increase the chances of being considered relevant and thus improve search results.   Last week Google announced that in May they will start rolling out an update to mobile search results which increases the effect of the ranking signal. Users will find more mobile friendly search results.

Google announced in mid 2014 that they would start using HTTPS as a ranking signal.  This means that sites connecting to the web via HTTPS might fare better in rankings than those connected via HTTP. Initially it affected only a small number of sites but Google indicated that over time, they might decide to strengthen it so as to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. Should you make the switch for your site from HTTP to HTTPS?  Here are some guidelines from Google to consider.

CREEK STEWART trusts his instincts for survival and trusts Moore Tech Solutions for his affiliate programming.

Creek is the founder of Willow Haven Outdoor Survival & Preparedness Training Facility in central Indiana. 

The team at Moore Tech Solutions has a wide degree of experience across various development platforms.   We have chosen to focus the majority of our efforts on developing sites using the Joomla content management system. While there are certainly several platforms which can be used to craft a modern responsive website, Joomla best fits the needs of the majority of our clients.   Where custom code or integrations are needed, we find that Joomla can be coupled with other solutions to solve some pretty challenging problems.

Keywords, Keyword Phrases, Long Tail, Short Tail, Search Result Rankings, Results…….aaargh!  WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED?

Ok, now that that is out of my system, the title of today’s post is a subject that is important to most organizations that have a website.  The question to be answered is “How does my site rank in search engine search results for keywords or keyword phrases that are relevant to my business? 

We have discussed on this blog the change in viewing habits to mobile devices and the need for your website to be mobile friendly.  More than 50% of website visits are being initiated from mobile devices so it is very important that your site respond to the device viewing the site by presenting the site in a visually appealing fashion.

At Moore Tech Solutions, we love our icons. We use them all the time because they are easy to manipulate with css, they are screen reader friendly for the vision impaired, and they work well with responsive design. Joomla comes with a core set of icons from IcoMoon, but locating a directory for the icon library that Joomla! uses is a difficult thing to find.

You have likely heard of encryption or been cautioned to look for “https” in your browser bar when going to a website, particularly if you are going to make an online purchase.  What does this mean and how does it help secure my transaction?

Have you ever been to a website, whether looking up weather, news, or searching for a particular answer to a question and experienced a slow response? Of course you have.  What was your response? Perhaps, if the information was important you hung around, waiting for the site to load so that you could get your answer. But if you needed a quick answer to something which was important to you, you likely went to another site that could give you what you were looking for.

You have a Real Estate company and you want to put your listings into the MLS and have it display on your website. You don’t want to enter it into the MLS and then have to enter in the same information (images, fields, address, everything) in again on your site.

Your MLS is using a piece of Real Estate software developed to make it easy for you to add in your listings and then have those listings display within the MLS, on any site that displays that MLS, until they are removed or sold.

What is Responsive Design?

Responsive web design means that a website has been developed to provide an optimal viewing experience across a broad range of devices including desktop computer monitors, popular tablets or pads, and popular mobile devices.  With a responsive website design you don’t have to worry about having different websites for different devices. Responsive sites provide a consistent user experience across devices.

Most business people are quite comfortable calculating the return on investment on a new product, a new real estate development, or perhaps a new piece of equipment in their plant.  Are you measuring the return on investment in your website? 

A necessary first step toward getting a hand on how valuable your website is to your organization is to check your site traffic.

In evaluating sites for basic SEO preparedness we first look for some basic and easy to fix items.  We are often surprised that even very large companies with undoubtedly expensive websites miss some of these essential items.  They are also easy for you to check.

Once your site is optimized, you want to work on the conversion aspect.  When a visitor arrives you should make sure that they can easily find what they are looking for and when they leave you will hopefully have moved them into the prospect or customer category. 

Having the correct keywords on your site is the biggest driver of your having acceptable search engine results.  A keyword is a word or phrase that someone might enter into a search engine when looking for a product or service.  Think of the keywords that relate to your business or organization and write down a list of 5 or 10.  Then go to a keyword analysis tool such as the one offered by Google and enter in your keywords.

We are going to begin a series of blog posts regarding SEO basics.  Some recommendations we make are easy to implement while others will be more difficult and may require the help of a consultant. For this post we concentrate on three high level areas where you should concentrate your efforts.  These areas are: Optimize, Convert, and Promote.

For your site type in “www.yoursitename.com”.  Look in the address bar where your site name is…is the “www” still there?  Now, type in “yoursitename.com” without the “www”.  Check again for the “www”.

Today we saw an online article where a well known financial institution unintentionally allowed its domain name to expire. (Reference – “Regions.com update: domain renewed, but access remains limited”).  This can not only be embarrassing, but can result in loss of connection with your customers or clients.  A lapsed name can typically be renewed for a limited or no penalty for 30 or 45 days, but why take that chance?

You only have about 10 seconds to satisfy a site visitors curiosity before he runs out of patience. If a user visits your site from a Search engine search (Google, Bing, etc) there is always a little anxiety that user experiences when selecting a site from a list.

We are often asked what are characteristics of a top quality host. The items that typically come to mind are:

• Servers appropriately configured for the web hosting application. In our case we predominately develop with the Joomla content management system so it is essential to have servers set up for Joomla.
• The host doesn’t put excessive sites on a shared server.  To find out how many sites are hosted on the same server as your website go here.
• 24 x 7 support that is prompt and professional

MTS will be happy to set you up on our account with one of our fine hosting providers and believe you will be very pleased with the level of support you receive.

In this latest update of McAfee Anti-Virus Plus and Security Scan Plus I ran into an issue and over the course of about 6 hours of head-banging finally managed to sleuth the problem and come up with a solution I thought I’d share.