When it comes to redesigning a website, one of the hesitations we hear from clients is that they don’t want to lose their long-term site SEO. Good news. At Hammersmith Support, we can redesign your site without losing your existing SEO. Here’s how we do it:

Staged Sites

The Hammersmith Support redesign process begins on a staged site. This duplicated site is where all the work takes place and makes it possible for your existing site to stay up and running during the design process. It’s business as usual for your customers and when the new site is complete, it’s simply launched with the established URL.

Assess Pages

Once the site is staged, we perform a full assessment of the site’s analytics. We evaluate each page’s performance and ensure that the highest performing pages’ URLs don’t change. This means that any links back to these pages will always be available, no matter how old they are.

Page Redirects

For any pages where the URL does need to change, a 303 redirect is issued. This allows any old links that may be out on the Internet to be redirected to the new version of the page. The redirect is invisible to the user and keeps long-standing SEO intact.

Consistent Content

By keeping page content the same while working around the information, we’re sure to keep the existing SEO as well. While the rest of the page is redesigned, leaving long-standing keywords on the page is good for maintaining SEO.

Redesign or Refresh

It’s important to remember that not every website needs to be redesigned. Many times a site can be refreshed with new images, logos, color schemes, layouts, and content can be updated to give your site a fresh look without disturbing existing SEO. However, if your site is built on out-of-date infrastructure or isn’t meeting your business needs, it’s likely time to redesign the site.

We would love to answer your questions about your business website and talk through any challenges and possible solutions too. Schedule your complimentary 30-minute consultation and let’s talk through your questions.

We are thrilled to share with you something that has been in the works for quite a while….Hammersmith Support has launched in Nashville, Tennessee! This new location for Hammersmith Support is a huge homecoming for founder Heather Locke. Born and raised in Knoxville, and educated at the University of Tennessee, bringing a branch of her business to her home state is a big part of Heather’s dream for her business and her family. Read on to find out more about this exciting news!

Same Great Service in an Additional Location

Having relocated from Knoxville to Phoenix twenty years ago, Heather always dreamed of being back near her extended family someday. But after starting a family and a business in Arizona, getting back east seemed unreachable. However, with the success of Hammersmith Support, the opportunity to expand the business to her home state started to look like it could actually work. Heather had this to say about why Nashville felt like the ideal location for the expansion:

“There’s a mural in Nashville that says ‘I believe in Nashville.’ I took a picture of my daughter in front of it last summer and I thought, ‘Why not Nashville?’. I started putting the pieces in place to expand my business here so that we could spend more time near family and in the other state I love!”

Meet the Team

Having boots on the ground in Tennessee was a must. The Hammersmith Support team grew by two to now include the Nashville team: Kelly Foster and Kaylie Nordin. Kaylie is the owner of Only1 Marketing and is expertly handling the marketing and launch of Hammersmith Support. Kelly is the administrative assistant for Heather and skillfully manages the inner workings of the office, keeping things moving smoothly.

Schedule Your In-Person Meetings This Summer

We are thrilled to be able to offer in-person meetings in Nashville this summer! And as always, our 30-minute virtual complimentary consultations are always available too. Book your appointment! Learn more about all of the services Hammersmith Support offers. And lastly, if you are hungry for more posts, visit our blog page.

The list of available platforms to build a website on seems endless! While Hammersmith Support has a preferred platform (more on that later), we want to bring you some pros and cons of the available platforms so that you can make the right choice for your business – you can read our post about WordPress v Wix here. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a platform, such as what kind of features you need on your site, how tech-savvy the person building and maintaining the site is, how quickly you expect to grow your business, and or how much help you’ll need in the design process. Knowing the answers to these questions can help guide the decision about which platform makes the most sense for your business.

Squarespace

Pros:

  • All-in-one platform – Widgets, apps, plugins, and even analytics are included with each site.
  • Ease of use – Extremely easy to set up and edit a site.
  • All-inclusive – Website, hosting and security are included with a monthly subscription.
  • Chat and email support are available 24/7.

Cons:

  • Photograph-heavy templates may be challenging to fill for businesses without many images.
  • Squarespace does not provide phone support.
  • Limited SEO makes it less likely that users will find your site organically.
  • Limited flexibility makes personalizing your site more difficult.
  • You cannot move your site to another hosting service.

Takeaway:

Squarespace is a great option for those who are less tech-savvy and yet want to dive into creating their business website. While more expensive than some available options, the all-in-one platform keeps things simple for users.

WordPress

Pros:

  • Portable content – If you change hosting providers, you can move your site and its contents easily.
  • Open-source – Resources are available to create a custom site using CSS code.
  • Built-in SEO – As Google changes its requirements, the built-in SEO settings in WordPress are adapted and updated by developers and users. If you’re looking to delve into your SEO and customize it, WordPress has options.
  • Scalable – No matter what size your business is now, a WordPress site can adapt and grow with your business.
  • Custom Designs – Seemingly endless options for design and customization.
  • E-commerce – WordPress makes it easy to integrate and set up a store using WooCommerce, Shopify or other platforms.
  • Speed – Especially when maintained regularly, websites load faster, which improves Google Search rankings and user experience.
  • Support – WordPress has a vast international community of users who are available to help and support others.

Cons:

  • Somewhat more expensive than other platforms – The framework is free, but you may need to purchase licenses for themes or plugins or pay for development if you’d like more customization.
  • Requires users to be more tech-savvy – WordPress is easier to use if you have more technical know-how.
  • Updates must be performed by the user – Regular maintenance is a must!

Takeaway:

WordPress should be your platform of choice if you need power and flexibility, and are comfortable with technology. A WordPress site is robust and has lots of options. More importantly, it grows and moves as your business evolves. You own your site and are not limited by a proprietary platform.

WordPress Is Hammersmith Support’s Preferred Platform

The ability to use open code to build custom sites on WordPress, along with the large support community that WordPress has fostered, allows Hammersmith Support to build completely custom sites for our clients. Unsure of what you need for your site? We’re here to help! Book a free 30-minute consultation and let’s talk about what Hammersmith Support can do for you and your website.

We know that we’ve told our readers a hundred times that website maintenance is important to your website. But really, it’s not that important. As long as your site is up and running, it’s fine! Really. Here are a few reasons why website maintenance just isn’t that important.

Security

If your website doesn’t take credit card information, it doesn’t need any security! Customer information like names, address, and email address wouldn’t be a big risk if they were to be stolen. And who would hack your site anyway?

Speed

Website maintenance can’t make your site run any faster. So it hardly seems worth the time to update your site regularly. Plus, at some point, you can just run a gigantic update all at once and it will get everything up to speed.

Content

If your services and products don’t change, why change anything on your website? Having a maintenance package that offers you 2 – 4 hours of content updates a month is hardly worth it.

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APRIL FOOLS!!😂😂😂

You know us better than that! We would never tell you that website maintenance isn’t important because it really is vital to having your site run safely and smoothly. So, let’s try this again:

Security

Even if your site doesn’t have eCommerce, having a security certificate is vital to your site running safely. Not only is it good business for your customers who can trust that their information is safe with you, but Google Ranking Factors will also rank your site higher because it’s safe for visitors.

Speed

Websites that are not up to date often run slowly. Your site is working much longer to keep up with outdated infrastructure and will take longer to load. Most users won’t stick around for a site to load if it takes longer than 3 seconds, so ensuring that your site loads quickly is imperative. In addition, waiting too long to run an update can cause your site to crash. Consistent maintenance prevents that extra-large update and the risk of it overloading.

Content

Not only is updating website content regularly great for customers, it also improves your SEO. Web crawlers love analyzing new content, and customers enjoy the value of long-form content like blogs, which educate them about your company and products too.

Let Hammersmith Support Help

Our monthly maintenance packages come in two forms to fit your needs. Visit our Calendly page to schedule a free 30-minute consultation and we can talk through your site needs and how we can help.

If you’ve recently downloaded our “Top Ten Questions to Ask Your Web Designer,” you saw that one of the questions is what platform will my site be built on and why? It may seem like a silly question to ask, but it’s important for a lot of reasons! We’re excited to share with you why WordPress is the preferred platform for Hammersmith Support-built websites.

User Friendly 

Open-source (meaning the code for each page is visible and changeable) makes each site customizable, enabling the creation of unique and robust websites.

The WordPress admin panel has also evolved over the years to include a visual builder, which makes it easier to train clients how to add and update pages.

Mobile Friendly

WordPress has created a mobile-friendly structure at its core so that each and every site can be optimized for mobile viewing.

Most themes are already mobile-ready, but in addition, the WordPress editor can also be accessed and used from a phone or tablet.

Built-in SEO and Google Loves It

WordPress automatically creates a page structure with built-in header, footer and structure tags that Google loves. With an easy-to-use plugin like Yoast or SmartCrawl, you can further define page descriptions and titles that produce even better results, ensuring your site is optimized for SEO.

Highly Customizable

In addition to being open source, there are thousands of plugins available to extend WordPress’ core functionality. You can also develop your own plugins and add customization specific to your business.

Built-in Blog

Each site comes with a built-in blog page, making it easy to add content, images, and expand your library, organically boosting your SEO in the process.

Support

Because WordPress is open source, there are knowledgeable developers all over the world as well as endless information online. Generally if you have an issue, you can use Google to find the answer.

Compatible with Many 3rd Party Software Products

WordPress plays well with most providers, making it easy to invite site visitors to sign up for your newsletter, conduct e-commerce business, and integrate marketing strategies. Some great examples of 3rd party software include WooCommerce and Stripe for e-commerce and Mailchimp, Constant Contact and HubSpot for marketing integration.

Why Hammersmith Support

We’re always happy to answer your questions! If you are curious about your own site, or are thinking about a new one, we’re here to help! Schedule a free consultation through our website to talk through your questions.

This week we have some spooktakular stories of websites gone wrong…these chilling stories may seem like urban legends, but we know them to be true. Each of these terrifying things can happen to your site if you’re not careful…so read on – if you dare! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

THE TALE OF THE LAPSED DOMAIN

This story takes place at the website address: the domain. Elvira bought her domain but didn’t check the email that she used to purchase it all that often. And so she missed the email that let her know it was time to renew her domain, the credit card on file had expired and suddenly…it was GONE! Even worse, someone had snapped up the Elvira domain in the blink of an eye, and she was left in the dark with no domain and no way to get her original URL back.

Don’t be like Elvira! Be sure to stay on top of the emails from your domain provider. If you keep a credit card on file for auto-renewals, make sure that it’s current!

THE UNSECURED SITE

Everyone knows leaving your doors unlocked is dangerous…and the same should be said for your website! Casper thought because he wasn’t collecting any personal information on his site, he didn’t need a Secure Socket Layer. But! The creepy web crawlers combed through Casper’s site and returned a very unfavorable Google Ranking…and then a client tried to link to his page, but it wouldn’t work! Oh no, Casper! He missed out on potential business because he didn’t have an SSL certificate.

Let Casper’s cautionary tale be a lesson to be sure that your SSL certificate is up to date!

THE ALL-BUT-ABANDONED WEBSITE

Freddy Krueger finally got his website up and running! But because he didn’t have a lead magnet or sell products through his site, he never ever touched it again. Until one day when he decided to sell his famous knife-tipped glove through his site. It was then that he had to update his entire site to add e-commerce and *POOF!* The entire site disappeared……

You see, because poor Freddy had never updated his site, it crashed trying to catch up so many updates at one time! And with no backup, Freddy’s gloves never made it to the market.

THE HACKER AND THE UNSUSPECTING WEBSITE

Frank N. Stein thought his website was safe enough – he had an SSL certificate, but he didn’t always update his site. One night, some scary hackers came across Frank’s site and decided to have a little fun. They added malware to the site and suddenly every page was filled with ads for some very “adult” products!

Poor Frank. Don’t leave your website vulnerable – keep your site, as well as your plugins, updated.

THE TERRIBLE HOST SITE

Pennywise the Clown found a free website host. One day a customer told him that he never shopped on his website because it was too slow to load and he hated all of the ads on the page. You see, the trade-off for free hosting was…advertising! And even worse, the host site was down all the time for maintenance, making Pennywise’s site frequently inaccessible.

Don’t let your website go down the storm drain! A good host is worth its weight in gold.

Let Hammersmith Support Help

We hope you enjoyed our spooky website tales! If you’re concerned about any of these topics and would like to talk about how to prevent these issues with regular maintenace and support, we’re here to help. Visit our Calendly link to book your free 30-minute consultation.

If the thought of updating your website is terrifying, or if the word “plugin” gives you the heebie-jeebies, this post is for you! Don’t let the idea of redesigning your website keep you up at night; it’s not as spooky as it may seem!

When you work with Hammersmith Support, we pull from our experience ranging from small businesses to large companies and foundations that have multiple sites. Our goal is to help you and your business by creating a dynamic, unique, functional, well-designed and high-performing site. We do this with our three-step system that ensures we understand your needs and are able to educate you about your site to get the best results possible.

Consult

At Hammersmith Support, our first step with every new client is to consult. We want to learn all about you, your business, what’s working, what’s not working, and any other details that will help us to help you. We want to understand the challenges you and your business face. Using all of that information, we’ll create a plan and then help guide you through our process of creating an amazing, customized website for you.

Create

When it comes to creating your site, we never use a template. All of our sites are unique for each client. We build every site with WordPress because we believe it is a superior, very customizable product with an excellent open-source support network. In addition, the sites we build for our clients are not only functional but are also optimized for search engines, speed, mobile devices, and differently-abled users.

Conquer

Once your site is complete, the sky is the limit! While you’re conquering the business world, Hammersmith Support can maintain your site. Our monthly maintenance packages help take the frustration of updating and maintaining your website off of your plate. Website maintenance packages include content updates, backups, security scans, SEO, site enhancements, site optimization, malware prevention, analytics reporting, performance monitoring, and more. We can make changes to your site such as updating inventory or images – anything that will keep your site up to date and running smoothly and securely.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re hungry for more about website design, click here to download “10 Questions to Ask Your Website Designer!” If you’re ready to talk about your website, schedule your free consultation!

When it comes to building your website, the reason you go to a professional is that you aren’t a web designer, right? But even so, it’s good to ask questions to make sure you are getting not only what you need, but also good value in your site, and someone you feel comfortable working with too.

5 Questions to Ask Your Website Designer

  1. Who will I work with during this process?
  2. What platform will my website be built on? Why?
  3. Do you offer hosting and maintenance?
  4. Do you custom design your websites or use templates?
  5. What if I have a problem down the road, who can I talk to?

Since You Might Be Wondering How We Would Answer These Questions….

At Hammersmith Support, all of our sites are custom-built, not templates, and all are constructed on WordPress. We believe that WordPress is a superior product compared to others on the market, in part because of its customizability and open-source community support. Additionally, we offer WP Engine hosting for all of the sites we build.

We know that all of our clients are unique and therefore their sites need to be as well. We build or refresh every client’s site independently, not from a template. And our full-service approach means we can design for you, or use a design of your choice.

It Can Pay off to Go Small…Business

One of the biggest benefits of working with Hammersmith Support is that we’re a small business – when you hire us, you get us! When you sign up for a maintenance package after your site is done, we’ll help keep your site running smoothly with updates to all aspects of the site including security, as well as make changes you may need to accommodate your business. And the best part? When you call, you’re not waiting on hold to a 1-800 number to talk with someone who has no idea who you are. When you call us, our first-hand knowledge of your site means we’re able to answer your questions efficiently.

Interested in 5 More Questions to Ask a Web Designer?

Download Our 10 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer Top Ten Questions to Ask Your Web Designer

Sign up to receive “10 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer,” including five additional questions to help with your web design process. Or click over to our Calendly link to schedule your complimentary 30-minute consultation with Hammersmith Support.

Our client highlight this week features the rebuild of the Strunk Insurance Group’s website. Teresa Strunk is a fellow W Source Arcadia / Scottsdale member. She and her husband, Casey, are the owners of Strunk Insurance Group, a full-service employee benefits consulting firm founded by Casey’s father, Greg. They reached out to Hammersmith Support to rebuild and redesign their site from the ground up.

The Website Issues

In order to continue to serve their client base effectively, Strunk Insurance Group had several website issues that they needed help resolving. First, the overall look and feel of their site no longer accurately reflected their organization. Their logo felt out of date and their site copy was no longer fitting.

In addition, a security scare led Strunk Insurance Group to prioritize not only the outward look of their site but also the “behind-the-scenes” maintenance. They needed a more robust foundation in conjunction with regular maintenance to ensure that their site was not only secure but also effectively drawing in and capturing potential leads.

Here’s a peek at the site before:

The Website Solution

Knowing that the content on the website needed to be not only informative but also well organized, they also contracted with Katrina Oko-Odoi of Content Worm (also a W Source Member!). She was able to create fresh copy that more clearly describes their often-complex insurance business and the services they offer. That, combined with a new logo and design, resulted in a fresh and simplified site that effectively communicates who and what the Strunk Insurance Group is.

Behind the scenes, Hammersmith Support built a new, modern theme for the design and developed the site using the built-in WordPress Gutenberg editor, which makes updating the site’s back end easier. Hammersmith Support continues to provide monthly maintenance for the Strunk Insurance Group to ensure that their site remains updated, secure and optimized.

The Final Product

Click to see the new and improved Strunk Insurance Group, and the sneak peek below!

Behind Strunk Insurance Group

Casey Strunk

In addition to highlighting the new website, we’re excited to introduce you to Casey Strunk through our Hammersmith interview. Both Casey and Teresa are very involved in the Phoenix community. Casey is the Board Chair of Phoenix EC70, while Teresa is Chair of the Board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona. They are both active members of Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, working as strong fundraisers for the charity.

Casey, what is your “why” and how did that motivate you to start your business?

“Greg Strunk, my father, started the business almost 40 years ago. We have always been focused on the client and we continue to see today what drove Greg to start the agency in the early 1980s. There is an under-served segment of the business community. Those employers with 25-200 employees do not have a benefit PARTNER that is willing to invest the time and energy they deserve when it comes to their benefits package. We treat our clients like family and they continue to be our ‘why’.”

What is unique about your style and product offering?

“Most employee benefits firms help clients with employee benefits. It turns out it is a lot more complicated than that. We help clients quarterback everything related to their human capital. This includes enrollment technology, compliance, IRS filings, human resources, and retirement plans.“

Lastly, what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

“Surround yourself with a great team. This includes my personal board of directors, peer groups, business coaches, other successful leaders, and your employees! I believe that in order to be successful over the long run, you have to constantly be changing and adapting your business.”

Hammersmith Support Is Here to Help

Are you thinking your site may need some updating? Have you had security issues that you are unsure are resolved? Click over to our Calendly link to schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation and see how Hammersmith Support can help you and your business.

Your business blog posts are great at adding value for your site visitor, and they are essential to your website’s SEO. That SEO is based on several factors including the blog structure, which is why your titles and subheadings are crucial parts of your blog. Not to mention being attention grabbers for your readers. We’ve got the breakdown of how to create and use titles and headers that will draw in your readers and increase your SEO advantage.

Don’t Get Cut Short

Titles

The ideal length for the title of a blog is 60-70 characters. After 70, it’s likely to be cut off in the search engine returned results. While this probably isn’t the end of the world in most cases, if your title reads much differently when a few words are cut off, searchers may be confused and possibly even offended by the part that is displayed!

Subheadings

Subheadings are all the headings within your content (“Don’t Get Cut Short” for example). They are important for a few reasons. First, they allow a reader to quickly scan your post. If they can’t get enough information in a few seconds to make a decision about whether or not they want to read the post, they’ll likely skip it and move on. Second, subheadings should pique a reader’s interest. Keeping a subheading snappy and interesting is key.

Keywords and Numbers and Brackets, Oh My

Titles

Using numbers is a great way to grab attention to your post. Think “3 Ways a Great Title Can Make a Big Difference.” In addition, always making sure that your keywords are part of the title is vital for good SEO – this will also ensure that your title isn’t vague or misleading. Lastly, consider using brackets in order to clarify and add details to the title (such as “Blog Titles Really Are That Important [new statistics]”).

Subheadings

The post subheadings are also a great place to put your keywords for the post. If you’re using a number in your title, be sure that your subheadings are following the same format so readers are not confused.

Formatting Matters

Title

In the Hammersmith Support post “How to Structure Your Blog for the Best SEO,” we talked about how formatting your blog boosts your SEO. For titles, WordPress will automatically make your title an H1 tag. But if you have to do so manually, be sure that only your title has the H1 tag. It will make it easier for readers, as well as search engines, to understand.

Subheadings

This post is a good example of formatting that employs several subheadings. You’ll notice that our main subheadings are formatted as H2, and the additional subheadings are H3. That is not only visually pleasing for readers but also helps search engines more readily crawl and rank the content.

Want More?

Click over to our blog to read more about blogging, website maintenance, and women in tech.

We’re here to help! If you have questions about your website or the design process, we’d love to talk with you. Book a free 30-minute consultation.