9:45 am PDT – The outage on Oct 4th was caused by a specialized server which normally wouldn’t cause any issues as there’s a redundant back up server, but in that instant there was an additional issue that together caused most websites to go down. We are adding another safeguard in to help prevent this in the future. Apologies for any disruption. Websites were restored at 7:00 am PDT.

8:45 am PDT – The IT Manager would like to do more detailed investigating before we post an explanation. Most likely this update will be posted tomorrow.

7:00 am PDT – All websites are back up and operating like normal. More info on what happened to follow.

6:30 AM PDT – We have received reports of websites being down. Our IT staff are looking into the matter. We’ll post updates here. Sorry for the disruption. We’ll do our best to get things back to normal quickly.

We’re excited to announce that you will now be able to turn on a cookies notice that your visitors will see upon visiting your website. This was created to be compliant with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in the US and Europe.

What are cookies?

The goal of GDPR is transparency for your visitors so they understand that some of their information will be saved temporarily to enhance their experience on your website. A cookie file basically remembers a prior action that you want memorized as  you visit other webpages. On your website, the cookie file is primarily for saving items in a shopping cart so that a visitor can continue browsing your website without losing those items. It is also used to memorize that a person has logged into a message board, voted in a poll or logged into their express checkout account when checking out their cart (if you have turned this turned on).

How does the cookies notice work?

You may turn the cookies notice on or off anytime by going to “My Pages” -> “Privacy Policy” and checkmarking the box “Check to turn on your cookie notice per General Data Protection Regulartions (GDPR).” Then, click “Save.”

Now when visitors come to your website, they will see a notice at the bottom of your pages. It will have a link to your privacy policy which you may edit by clicking on “My Pages” and then “Privacy Policy.” As your visitor browses your website, the notice will stay put until they close the notice. Per GDPR, the notice will not reappear for 365 days or until your visitor deletes the cookie file for the notice on their browser. Sometimes people will occasionally delete all browser cookies which would automatically clear out the cookie notice file.

Common Questions

Can I edit the text for the cookies notice?

All cookie notices default to “To enhance your user experience on our website, this site uses cookies. If you continue to browse, you accept the use of cookies on our site. See our Privacy Policy for more information.” It was intentionally set this way to broadly cover all our customers. Also, per GDPR, for the type of cookies used on your website, you do not require your visitors to specifically agree to use of your website’s cookies. Instead, visitors need only be notified that cookies are used.

Can I change the color of the cookies notice?

Yes, but only if you are using an Enhanced Template and are comfortable with CSS coding otherwise please contact our support team to help you. Click on “Design” and then go to “Edit Current Template” and click on “Advanced Options.” From there, you will want to make changes to the [#cookie-container] CSS ID.

How come I don’t see the cookies notice?

If you don’t see the cookies notice, first make sure you have turned it on by going to “My Pages” and then “Privacy Policy.” Check mark the box near the top to turn it on.

If you still don’t see it, it’s probably because you need to clear your cookies on your browser as you’ve previously closed the notice. As another option, a faster way to see your cookies notice is to open a new incognito window (this allows you to browse the internet anonymously) then go to your website. On Chrome for Windows, press Ctrl+Shift+N and for Mac press Command+Shift+N. On Firefox for Windows, press Ctrl+Shift+P and for Mac press Command+Shift+P. Then, go to your website.

Will the notice appear on the mobile version of my website?

Yes. Regardless of whether you have mobile enabled for your website or not, the cookies notice will appear if it’s turned on.

UPDATE MAY 27:  All templates now have an alternate text field for the header image.

We’re excited to announce new improvements to help you make your website fully accessible

to those with disabilities. These tools will allow you to fulfill the requirements for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Compliance. For those customers outside of the US, there are similar rules in place in the EU and coming soon to Canada. Other countries are likely to follow. Generally, they all follow the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) put forward by the World Wide Web Consortium.

In some places, a person with a disability may be able to pursue legal action against you, so it’s in your best interest to make your website compliant as soon as possible. Below, we’ll go over the new tools we’ve built as well as some advice to help your site become compliant.

Alternative Text for Images

ADA compliance requires all images to have alternative text (AKA alt text) that adequately describes the image. This is read by screen readers and refreshable braille displays for people with visual disabilities. As an added bonus, alt text may also help with search engine optimization if you use keywords as part of your image description.

If you inserted an image using the text editor’s “add image” button, note that there’s always been an option to add alt text.

However, there were some images that didn’t have the option which we fixed as follows:

“Click to Change” boxes on all page layouts:

For any product images on a Catalog layout page, we have auto-filled the alt text with your product name. You may wish to change these to better suit your images to be more descriptive.

Header Image in Template Design:

This one will be released in about a week. Further instruction will be given in a future post about this.

Labels for Buttons, Text Box Fields, Checkboxes, Radio Button Options and Drop Down Menus

These labels are not visible on your website, but have been added to our code for screen readers and refreshable braille displays to read. Here’s where this was added:

• catalog and shopping cart checkout process pages
• interactive pages like the blog, custom feedback form, autoresponder, newsletter, message board, polls, guest book, calendar, download and recommend site pages

New Captcha

We have switched our old captcha to the Google’s reCAPTCHA tool which is disability friendly. It now looks like this:

Further Practical Advice

Here is a list of other ways you can make your website ADA compliant:

• Add captions to any videos you upload. Another option is to have a transcript of your video available.
• Make sure there is high contrast between your text color and background color at “Design” -> “Edit Body.”
• Use headings, subheadings and white space to group related content.
• Add a caption to any graphics that you post.
• Enable the mobile version of your website at “Design” -> “Mobile Site” so your website layout will be adapted automatically for easier viewing on a mobile phone or tablet.
• Provide controls for video, music or sound effects that play on your website. Note that YouTube automatically includes this.

As a final note, we recommend searching online for more information to familiarize yourself with WCAG so you can accommodate more visitors to your website.

Due to electrical maintenance at our network provider’s data center, we were just informed that all of their networking infrastructure will be powered down for up two hours on Saturday, May 16th, 2020.

For our customers, this means from approximately 7:00 am to 9:00 am Pacific Standard Time, your website and email may be offline. The actual down time is expected to be 30 minutes sometime during this window, but be prepared for up to two hours just in case. Additionally, the CityMax website, our email and billing phone line (it goes through the Internet) will also be closed during that time.

We apologize in advance for this inconvenience and we will work with our network provider to bring everything back online as quick as possible.

Thank You.

UPDATE:  This has been cancelled due to concerns related to COVID-19.

Due to emergency electrical maintenance at our network provider’s data center, we have been informed that all of their networking infrastructure will be powered down on Saturday, March 28th, 2020. For our customers, this means from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, your website and email will be offline. Additionally, our company’s website, email and billing phone line will also be closed during that time.

We apologize in advance for this inconvenience and we will work with our network provider to bring everything back online as quick as possible.

Thank You.

A lot of customers ask us what companies we think are the best for Pay Per Click advertising. As a result, we would like to officially recommend a new partner company — TitanPPC.com. Here’s a message from them about their services:

Advertise your business using PPC on Google!

We’ve partnered up with CityMax to provide you with world class Pay Per Click Services. TitanPPC.com has over 7 years of PPC experience and we are Google Certified Pay Per Click Experts. This partnership is a huge win for all CityMax customers! The best part is that TitanPPC.com really knows the needs of CityMax users. We have worked with CityMax customers in the past and know the website builder in and out.

What is PPC?

Pay Per Click allows you to get to the top of the search engines by paying for your ad to be there. Compared to SEO (search engine optimization) PPC gets you instant traffic to your website or business much faster. PPC simply means you are paying every time someone clicks your advertisement, thus: “Pay Per Click”.

Is PPC Right For You?

Every business big or small should be running PPC. If you’re a small one person operation, or a fortune 500 company, you should be running PPC. PPC is our passion and we believe that every business in the world should have the opportunity to grow like they have never imagined. No matter what your budget, we can help!

We Have a Special Deal for CityMax Customers

We know marketing budgets aren’t always big, so we are offering 2 special packages just for the needs of CityMax customers. You won’t find rates this low anywhere else online for world class pay per click services.

Please visit us at www.titanppc.com/citymax or call 1-888-325-4508.

Improve staff productivity with these 3 tips

Every boss wants a dream team of employees who go about getting everything done efficiently and with a smile. From my own experience, I’ve found the following 3 tips have helped my staff feel more motivated and happier at work because they have a clear idea of what their part in the company is:

Create systems for daily operations and emergencies

An efficient system is one where everybody knows what they need to accomplish and how to do it. They also know what other people on their team are working on so there’s no overlap or confusion. Everyone’s expectations match. To accomplish this, you can do the following:

• Have regular meetings with your team. Give everyone an agenda in advance so that the meeting stays on track.
• Have a contingency plan for emergencies, for when you are away or for when you are short staff.
• Have an operations manual so if a staff member doesn’t know what to do, he/she can check the manual. An online manual is sometimes better as it can have the ability to search for terms.

All these items help ensure your operations run smoothly. It’s also a good idea to continually tweak your operations so you’re always optimizing the productivity of your staff.

Set clear and measurable goals

When employees know what your goals are for the company, it can help them make decisions that best support what you want to accomplish. Try to make goals as clear as possible, realistically attainable and with measurable results. For example: 12 sales per week, complete XYZ project by December or financial statements done by the end of the month. You can set smaller goals and overall company goals. You may even want your staff to help you set some of the goals. Once the goals are set and employees know what the goals are, they will prioritize their work better and spend less time on items that are not important.

Make time to get feedback from your staff

Usually your staff will have some of the best ideas for making improvements and will have the best understanding of what’s not working. It’s worthwhile, from time to time, to sit down and talk with your various employees to give them a chance to voice what they think about the current operations. You can do this one-on-one and/or make time at staff meetings. When ideas from staff are implemented, they will buy into your system more since they helped create it. Giving praise for good ideas will also encourage your staff to come up with more ideas. The end result is everyone is working toward improving the company as much as possible.

By doing the 3 tips above, you show your staff that you value their time and their opinion. You’ve removed confusion and inefficiencies. You’ve given them a forum to know what’s going on in the company and to give you feedback. You’ve set realistic goals so when they are accomplished your staff will get a chance to feel proud of what they’ve done. The end result is happier, more productive employees.

Guest Post:  Adam Steele is the CEO at Nightlite Media. His expertise includes SEO, social media and email marketing. This is Part 3 of Google Local Results Changed the Game.

In my last two posts, I explained the 5 W’s of Google Places (who, what, when, where & why), as well as how to go about optimizing your own Google Places page. A year ago, this information would have been enough to earn you a first page ranking, and in some smaller niches and/or cities, this is still the case. HOWEVER, if you want to play with the big boys, and take your Google Places optimization to the next level, then your next step is to learn off page ranking factors.

Off page ranking factors covers a huge scope of potential topics. First, it is important to understand the difference between off page and on page factors. When it comes to Google Places optimization, on page factors include your website and Google Places page. For simplicity, we have only covered your Google Places page, which was the topic of my last post. Off page factors include major link building. That is, building links on other sites, and having them link to your website. In this article, we are going to focus on one type of links: citations.

Citations are occurrences of your business information online. In fact, it doesn’t matter where online it appears, as long as the citation includes your business name, address and phone number (NAP). A common misconception is that a citation is a profile on a local business directory such as Yelp, Superpages, Insiderpages, Judysbook or Citysearch. While these are excellent sources for citations there are not citations themselves. They are local business directories.

Local business directories are certainly the most common place to create citations for a lot of reasons including: it is free, easy, authoritative, of  high quality, traffic-rich etc. For all these reasons, we will focus on these directories and go over what you need to know about them.

Firstly, yes, they are FREE – well mostly. Many of these directories offer everyone a free business profile, which allows them to add their business information, pictures, videos, link to site etc. Not a bad deal! However, these directories stay in business because they hope to sell you extra incentives, including advertising, better ranking on the site and a multitude of other products and services. Do not be surprised if you receive a call or several email solicitations immediately after signup. It is a necessary evil I am afraid. For those of you who want to entertain these offers, I suggest you tread very carefully. Most aren’t worth their weight.

Creating profiles on local business directories is dead easy, but you shouldn’t take the easy, quick route. Although I haven’t proved this yet, it is my feeling that a more complete profile will lend more authority. That is, Google treats a bare bones profile differently than one that has been carefully completed. This may not be the case right now, but I have no doubt that in future this will be the case. So go ahead, add pictures, videos, great content, etc. Another good reason to create these carefully is accuracy. Any inaccuracies in your business name, address or phone number will hurt your ability to improve your Google Places rank.

Authority and quality fall in the same boat. When I say authority I am usually referring to the credibility that Google has assigned to a website, or in this case the local business directory. All the more popular directories have lots of authority, which is in part, passed off to your business when Google finds your business information on it. For all intents and purposes, it is considered a ‘vote of confidence.’ By this, I mean that a link or citation from these directories will have a positive effect on your rankings. Google has deemed them quality websites.

If a local business directory has all the before mentioned characteristics then it also will be traffic rich. What does this mean to you? Well, many of these sites attract consumers looking for local
businesses. If consumers are able to find you, and in a good light (thanks to your robust profile), you may score yourself some extra business. In fact, I find that my clients tend to receive 3-5% of their traffic from these directories. If their monthly traffic is 1000 visits, 30-50 extra visits is nothing to scoff at.

Here is a small list of the more popular local business directories:

These are just some great directories you can submit your business to. There are literally THOUSANDS. Per usual, we have a reward for your readership. We want to send you a list of 100 of the best local business directories online. This is the list that we submit our clients to and one that we have carefully cultivated over the last 18 months. Send me an email adam.steele@nightlitemedia.com and I will quickly send it your way.

Guest Post:  Adam Steele is the CEO at Nightlite Media. His expertise includes SEO, social media and email marketing. This is Part 2 of Google Local Results Changed the Game.

Overview

97% of consumers search for local businesses online. You definitely want to be there when they’re looking for you with Google Places for business.

Google wants to show its users the most relevant, up-to-date, quality information (including companies) possible. This is its mission and just one reason it is the biggest. As such, when it comes to optimizing your Google Places page, you should keep this in mind.

The following are some simple tips and guidelines to a successful Google Places page optimization. The quick tweaks will improve your chances of securing better positions for your business. Please keep in mind that Google Places is constantly changing, and what works at the time of this checklist may change dramatically in 30 days. Saying that, we have tried to keep to the things that have remained a constant for some time now.

Initial Process

• Select the area/city you wish to target
• Keyword Search: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Put in a word that you “think” the average person would type in Google when looking for a business in your city. (NOT the name of a business, but a word or phrase.) Example: ‘Dallas electrician’. Google will suggest other popular words below that term. View the ones that are popular and record them. Make sure you deselect broad and select exact (on the left) and focus your attention on local volume/searches, not global.
• Identify keywords you would like to dominate in your local town/city and search them for yourself. Not all keywords will trigger Google Places. So, you need to make sure the ones you go forward with bring up Google Places results when you search for them.
• Record on a piece of paper the top 5 -10 keywords and rank them in order of priority (keep on hand).

Submission

• Set up a Gmail account if you don’t have one already here.
• Search for your company to see if an existing Google Places page is already setup. Go to http://maps.google.com and put in your phone number with area code to see what comes up. Try more than one phone number if you have more than one for your business.
• If after you check, you DO have a page, then you will simply want to “Edit Page” if there is anything you want to change (check below to see if your current Google Places page has the appropriate content listed below.) If you do NOT have a page after entering your phone numbers, then you will want to create one!

Creating A Google Places Page

• After you have created a Google account, you will want to set up your Page. Answer every question (Leave nothing undone – Google views this as “incomplete”.)
• Company Name (Without keywords) DO NOT get fancy here. Stuffing your title with keywords is just going to get you in trouble. In the past, stuffing the title offered an SEO advantage, but now it is both risky and unnecessary. Simply put your business name here as it is recognized everywhere else.
• Street Address: Your business address as it occurs everywhere else online and offline. Consistency and accuracy are KEY. If your business has existed for some time, try and search your own address. Look for the most popular address for yourself and go with that one if it’s applicable–otherwise update it. You would be wise to go back and adjust all those addresses that are different than what you use in your Google Places page. NOTE: If later you decide to make any changes to your address, Google will very likely request to send you a post card before updating.
• City/Town: Self Explanatory. NOTE: This is the city that you will have the best chance of ranking in for your keywords.
• Main phone: Same principle as your street address. Take a look how your phone number appears already online. Is it in (xxx) or xxx? You want it to appear in Google Places the same way it does elsewhere online.
• Website: Use http://www. You want it to be hyperlinked.
• Description: I would typically suggest using the same one that occurs in your site’s meta data (description tag) for consistency. Keyword rich is fine, but don’t make it spammy. Also, consider your click through rate (CTR). Searchers will see this, and decide whether they want to click or not so don’t be afraid to be a bit ‘salesy.’
• Category: Few things to know here. Stay the heck away from city modifiers. That is, your category should be ‘electrician’, NOT ‘Dallas electrician.’ Doing the latter will get you in trouble. Google gives you 4 custom categories and one pre-defined. Make good use of them and align them with the keywords you want to rank for. Similar to the Company/Organization field, categories are being screened and the same sensitive keywords apply. Custom categories don’t really have to be too coherent. If you have a lot of keywords you are targeting, try and combine them with other keywords, but again, not too spammy.
• Service Area and Location Settings: Pretty self explanatory. It is commonly used if you are using an address outside of the city/cities that you want to rank in OR you want to rank in all your surrounding cities. Use this function to define your service area(s). NOTE: You aren’t going to rank in San Fran, if your address is in Austin. Obvious, I hope. However, if your address is in the suburb of San Fran and you want to rank in San Fran and its surrounding suburbs is doable. Being outside of the city you want to rank in puts you at a disadvantage. If you are trying to rank for a competitive keyword and you are not located in the city you want to rank in, you could be hooped.
• Hours & Payment: Just make sure this is consistent with everything else that is published online.
• Photos: Yes, you should add photos. Photos uploaded should be saved as ‘cityname-state-keyword’ and then uploaded. Google also gives you the option to “Add a photo from the web.” I like to add a picture from the website. This creates a connection between your Google Places page and your website. This is a good thing.
• Videos: Yes, you should add video preferably of a testimonial like a customer (not you). These can be YouTube videos. Remember to make sure your files are named after a keyword.

Verification: More than likely Google will want to send a post card. The post card typically takes 5-8 business days to arrive. When it arrives, log back into your Google Places dashboard and enter a PIN code to verify and activate your listing.

Similar to my last post, there is a perk for reading. This articles perk is 3 months of FREE Google Places page optimization…a $300 value!! To enter the draw, send your answer to the following question to adam.steele@nightlitemedia.com. Also, if you like some of the tips above, follow me on twitter for more at http://twitter.com/nightlitemedia.

Question: In the categories section of your Google Places page, doing what can get you in trouble?

Guest Post:  Adam Steele is the CEO at Nightlite Media. His expertise includes SEO, social media and email marketing.

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in the search engines. As an internet marketing strategy, search engine optimization considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. In this three part series, I am going to focus on local search engine optimization, otherwise known as Google Places, beginning first with a brief history and thorough explanation of what it means to you and your business. My hope is by the time you finish reading part three, you will be able to take it upon yourself to improve your businesses local presence is Google Places. At the end of each post, I will be offering a FREE game changing eBook that I have put together to help you and your business succeed online.

How Google Local Results Changed SEO

SEO—Search Engine Optimization—has been a necessary staple of website production since the invention of the search engine. Many techniques have been invented to make sure that websites appear as highly as possible when customers and audiences are looking for them. It eventually became evident that some massive websites could use these techniques to maintain their dominance indefinitely, even when users were searching for terms only dubiously related to these dominant websites. Also, these huge websites could afford massive firms to provide SEO services for them, which guaranteed them superior results over smaller websites. For this reason and several others, Google instituted local search results.

What are Google local Search Results?

Google first launched their local results system in late 2010. Simply put, local search results are an adjustment to the Google algorithm which displays results from a user’s local area before national options. For example, if someone in Seattle, WA were using Google to search for a common phrase such as “outdoor furniture” they would have once been directed to a results page filled with companies competing internationally. Now however, local results from actual businesses located in Seattle will be given priority and appear at the top of the page.

The local search results also tied in with the expansion of Google Maps. All the local businesses that appear in the search results will also have their locations and applicable reviews noted. This created a powerful incentive for local businesses to begin investing in their online presence, and gave them a reason to consider SEO services for their own needs.

Why do Google Local Results Matter?

Google Local Results or also commonly known as Google Places, are nothing less than a game changer for the world of SEO. The initial impact of the fact that small businesses could now compete with international companies created several serious changes in the way SEO is done, and how seriously businesses need to take their online presence.

Google Local Results changed SEO in several important ways. First, it shifted the focus for any local results from international businesses with massive budgets to small businesses. After all, no matter what, the small business would appear before the larger business when searching for a term that included a geographical region. Of course, only a few of the top results were dedicated to local businesses, and those spots were now fiercely competitive. New SEO firms that dedicated themselves to local results formed quickly and convinced many businesses of the necessity of updating their marketing to include internet saturation. Small Businesses, for their part, had little choice but to take internet marketing more seriously.

It is not an insider secret of marketing that customers are moving more and more of their business online, and not just when they want to order, but also when they are looking for businesses in their own area. Many services assist with this, be they GPS software, Smart Phone apps or others. The fact that Google dominates most searches on the web makes it necessary for businesses operating in limited geographic areas to begin taking their online presence seriously. Not just because they may now compete with international companies, but also because local businesses are now beginning to powerfully compete in their own areas. When a significant number of new customers are discovering businesses online, it becomes absolutely necessary that businesses take advantage of these conditions to compete.

What does this mean for the future of SEO?

Google Local Results ensured that internet marketing and SEO services are now and forever something that locally-oriented businesses should take advantage of. For small businesses, this means it will be absolutely necessary in the future to understand SEO. It may also mean that SEO positions, or a contract for SEO services becomes an important part of companies that rarely dealt with any sort of online marketing before.

Conclusion

As greater numbers of users and customers shift their lives online, more and more once-rare techniques become necessary for operating in the modern business world. SEO is one of these techniques, and has only become more relevant in the face of dramatic changes like Google Local Results. The consequences of Google Local Results are already evident. The opportunities waiting for both small businesses and specialists alike are daunting to even consider. As in every human endeavor though: Fortune favors the bold.

Now that you have read my monotonous ramble, here is a free eBook that will give you the basics to begin improving your on-page game. That is, I will be providing you with instructions to improve your visibility online simply by making a few changes to what appears on your website. NOW, this eBook is ONLY going to be useful for those who take the time to read. As such, in order to receive your free Game Changing eBook, you must answer a skill testing question, the answer of which is in this post.

Question: What is local search engine optimization or Google Local also known as? Send me your answer to adam.steele@nightlitemedia.com and I will send you your free eBook.