Many people and organizations are scrambling to understand what is the GDPR and what should you be doing?

What is the GDPR?

Basically, it is an approach to give control to individuals concerning their personal information and how it is shared with businesses. What personal information are we talking about? Any information that can be used to identify an individual. This includes:

• Name
• ID number
• Location
• IP addresses
• Browser cookie
• Mobile device IDs.
• Any information that can physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity

The GDPR is the acronym for the General Data Protection Regulation that is required by the European Union (EU). This new regulation determines how personal data of European citizens can be used by businesses. It will go into affect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR has an increased territory scope, new penalties and a clear defined consent.

What is the territory scope of the GDPR?

“First of all, I don’t live or work within the EU so why should I care?”

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the GDPR only affects EU businesses. The truth is it not only covers European based business but anyone processing the personal data of EU citizens. So, this means if you use any personal data from contacts contacts that are citizens of the EU then you should be updating your privacy policy to include the GDPR.

What are the penalties for the GDPR?

The GDPR clearly identifies the penalties an organization can be held to if a breach of regulation is found. It is a tiered system with the maximum fine up to 4% of annual global turnover or 20 million Euros.

A clear defined consent

No longer can companies use drawn out legal terms and documentation to communicate their policies. They now must use a clear and concise method to inform individuals of their intent concerning any personal information. This consent can be through a simple form provided by the business to the individual.

What should you be doing?

Before you do anything, you should contact your legal authority and ask them to review your current policy. The rules laid out by the GDPR clearly identify that any business that has collected personal data in the past, currently or in the future will have to update their privacy policy. In addition to the policy it may be necessary to have a consent form available to individuals within the EU.

In addition to updating your privacy policy, it is encouraged that you reach out to any third-party company that you use to collect any data. This could be a database, credit card process or other resource that collects or houses personal information for you. Major companies have already updated their policies and you may have already seen these notifications. Regardless, it is still a benefit to you if you understand your role and whether or not you need to do anything else.

Available GDPR Resources

We realize that you may have questions or need direction in gathering more information. We’ve compiled a short list of resources to help you and your organization.

European Commission

The European Commission has provided a useful guide that outlines the GDPR and steps needed to be compliant.

Update to WordPress

The latest WordPress update has added 95 maintenance improvements including tools to enhance privacy and control over user data. It even contains a guide on how to write a privacy policy.

How to add a privacy policy

Privacy policies are required by law and its important to know what goes into one. This is a useful article that outlines how to add a privacy policy on your own.

MailChimp

MailChimp has outlined the GDPR and provided useful resources to help track and identify individuals that may fall within the required consent. They are also providing a useful consent form that can easily be embedded onto any website.

Google

If you currently use any Google resource you should have seen their policy update emails within the past few weeks. In addition to their policy changes, they are also modifying how certain data is retained. You have control to modify this as it reflects your internal policy.

We recommend that you update to WordPress 4.9.6 with new privacy tools. This new privacy and maintenance update contains important tools that enhance control over privacy and security.

Key features from the enhancements enhancements include:

• Guidance for the new European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Comments enhancement to allow user control over browser cookie
• New privacy policy page allowing site owners to create and maintain their site policy
• Privacy policy guide on how to handle personal data
• Enhanced data handling
• 95 maintenance updates

Privacy

The new European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is an approach to give control to individuals concerning their personal information and how it is shared with businesses, will be enforced started May 25, 2018. The new WordPress tools will allow site owners to better understand how to protect user data.

Comments

Browser have the ability to save user’s form information through cookies, small files stored on your computer. WordPress websites that have commenting enabled will now provide users with a choice on whether personal data is saved in a cookie on their computer.

Privacy Policy Page

Update to WordPress and have control over your site’s policy with the new privacy policy page that allows site owners to create and maintain their site policy. WordPress now provides tools to assign a privacy page which will be shown on default login and registration pages as well as any other page or menu. WordPress will also provide a guide with insights on they handle data and how to add this information to your site’s policy.

Data Handling

With the new WordPress updates site owners can now export an individual or group of users’ personal data as well as WordPress and plugin data. In addition to this, site owners can erase the user’s personal data including data collected by WordPress plugins.

Update to WordPress

WordPress has added 95 maintenance improvements with this latest update. Whether you are a designer, developer, editor or contributor all will benefit with an update to WordPress. You can read about the complete updates over at WordPress.

Not sure how to Update WordPress? We are here to help answer your questions.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of maintaining your website and its content so that it is accessible to search engines and visitors. Years ago this meant having to be aware of specific code that was flagged when a search engine tried to index your website. Although there is still code involved, the advancement of the internet as well as the support to encourage all website content to be user friendly and pertinent has made SEO easier to maintain today.

1. Search Engine Optimization starts with content

That’s true. You want the content of a page to reflect the subject matter that you are relaying to your visitors. A search engine knows this too and will not spend time on a page or will avoid indexing a page if the content is not relevant. So how do we make the page relevant? Start by adding at least 300 words of content related to that page, product or subject. Three hundred words may sound like a lot, but it’s important to understand why. A search engine will not consider content relevant if there is not enough words to completely relate this to a visitor. 300 has become the ‘magic number’ of words to start an index for a page on a website. More is better if its original; meaning do not repeat your content on the same page. If you find your are hitting over 900 words and still going, split that page into two separate pages. This will not only help the visitor but will show the search engine that you have two pages of supporting content that can be linked.

In addition to your page copy, be sure your page title directly supports your content. For example, don’t try to come up with a creative, gimmick for a title. Instead, clearly state what the page is about. Support your title and copy by providing links to relative content. This can be internal (other pages on your website) and external (other websites). A good rule is three links to relative and supporting content. This will allow a search engine to compare your content with other indexed content. It also helps rank your page to pages with similar subject matter. You can also use media such as videos and images as long as their “Alt” text and descriptions support the keyword.

2. Keywords still matter in Search Engine Optimization

Keywords have been a huge SEO term for many years. A keyword is a single word or short phrase that either defines or supports the content and subject of the page. For example, a keyword for this page is “search engine optimization”. Another keyword is, “seo”. And a third keyword is “page ranking”. You can define these keywords directly in the code of the page. We recommend using a plugin or tool such as Yoast SEO which avoids having to code anything and helps you measure individual keywords. Measuring not only your keyword’s value but also your page rankings is important.

3. Use Google’s Search Console

Thankfully there is a tool designed to help you monitor, maintain and update your website’s SEO and page rankings. Google’s Webmaster Search Console is free to use and will show you how your website is indexing according to Google. It’s helpful to see your website and page rankings. In addition to this information you can see what pages are not indexed and why. If there is an indexing error on your website or a specific page Google provides steps to resolve this error. It also allows you to manually submit a page for indexing. This can be important if a page has resolved errors or the content of the page was recently updated.

Need Help?

We are here to answer any questions you have about optimizing your website. SEO helps your website be a visible window to your visitors. If this article has sparked an idea or question that you need help answering let us know.

What is website hosting?

Simply put, website hosting is the physical location where all of the website files for a specific website are located. However, there is a lot that goes into hosting a website. Remember that last party you hosted. What went into it besides the location? Food, drinks, invites and that one friend who passed out drunk on your porch.

Just like your event location, website hosting has several components that make a happy hosting location. The important parts of website hosting include: servers, bandwidth, disk space, memory and security.

Servers

This is your website’s physical house. Don’t be confused to where this server sits. It could be in the cloud (look up), a dedicated building, halfway around the world or your neighbor’s basement. The more important things to consider are the physical and functional aspects of the server.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the term used for information that is transferred through your server. A hosting provider may put limits on the bandwidth in order to be fair to its clients (allowing all servers to have an equal playing field). Don’t be scared about limiting bandwidth. Hosting packages are designed for optimum experiences.

Disk Space

How small is your house? Or, how big do you want it to be? Disk space used to be a huge issue. Technology today has made file sizes a lot smaller so your website could actually take up less space than you think. So what does take up space (besides that large fern in the corner)? Images can take up space but more often it’s video or audio files that are taking up too much room. If this is the case, media hosting sites like YouTube or Soundcloud can help out while increasing visibility. A good hosting environment will provide enough space for your website to grow.

Memory

This is a term assigned to how well information can be provided. Does your website take a long time to load? This may be a memory issue. If there is an increase in traffic on your website does it affect how it functions? Again, this could be a memory issue. Hosting plans may limit memory just like bandwidth in order to spread it evenly across all websites.

Security

How locked down are your files? Sadly, reports of hacking, malware or malicious behavior are all too common. Sometimes these behaviors are so strong that it shuts a website or server completely off. Other times, it could be happening in the background and you have no clue. This could be worse than a website shutting down because you do not know what is going on. Although malicious activity will always be around, a good host will ensure that it is up to date with the latest security features to help protect your server and information.

What is domain registration?

Domain registration is the address of a specific website. Remember that party earlier? The event had an address. Your website has an address too. Sometimes, your website hosting and your domain registration are at the same place or have the same account. This is not required. Unlike your home address, a domain registration can be anywhere that provides the ability to link to your website hosting account.

If you are looking to register a new domain, we recommend NameSilo. Their prices are fair and you will spend an average of $10 a year. They also have a great platform that will walk you through how to configure your domain’s information.

Where do I find website hosting?

There are a lot of options when it comes to your website “home”. Its important that the cost and quality of the hosting are balanced. We have been providing website hosting for several years. When we first started building websites, we saw a concern for quality hosting. After spending a lot of time trying to work through other hosting providers we started providing hosting for our clients. This allows us to continue a positive relationship with our clients while providing them with a very reliable service.

If you have questions about any of the information on this page or would like to know more about our hosting options we will be glad to walk you through the answers.

Adding a single Google Map or multiple locations is a great way to fully utilize your website.   The following steps will provide instructions to establish a map for your website.

Google Map With Single Location

First, go to Google Maps.
Enter the address and then click search to bring up the location.
Click “Share or Embed Map”

In the box that will appear shortly after, select “Embed Map” at the top.
Choose the size of the map you desire.
An HMTL embed code will appear in the field to the right, copy that code and paste it into the source code of your website.

Multiple Locations Using Google Map

If you have several locations that you would like to pinpoint on your map, google maps does have the options to make this happen.  The following steps will provide instructions to establish a map with multiple locations using Google’s Map Engine.

Sign in to your Google account or create one.
Go to the Map Engine and select “Create a new map”.
Select the “Untitled Map” option to list your title and description of your new map.

Using the search field, enter the address or search for your first location.
Once the location pops up, click “Add to map”.

Continue to add additional locations in the same way.
When you are done click “Share”.

Under the option for “Who has access” click “Change…”
Select the first option for Public and then Save. You can then click Done to close the share window.
Click the menu icon to the right of the title.

Select “Embed on my site”.
Copy and paste the embed code to your website.