by Michael Cropper | Sep 19, 2016 | Client Friendly, News |
Such a common rhetoric from virtually every business who is looking to recruit digital talent within their organisation, “We can’t find people with the right skills”. Firstly, to those organisation, make sure your jobs are posted on Tendo Jobs, it’s free to do so and we have lots of active job hunters regularly searching for skills in every sector ranging from retail to highly technical digital roles to C-level roles. Secondly, instead of complaining about not being able to find the right staff, let’s look at the practical steps to growing your own talent.
Quite frankly, the lack of skills talk hasn’t changed in the digital world over the last several years and it’s getting a bit boring to keep listening to if I’m honest. So we thought we could do something about that. Introducing Contrado Academy, the practical hands on courses designed to allow your staff to learn how to ‘do digital’ the right way. With a variety of courses running in locations throughout the UK, we’re able to deliver high quality training courses that teach the practical skills and real-world experience that your employees need to know. Whether you are looking to know the basics or progress through the variety of courses and become a fully-fledged digital expert, we have courses available from beginners to advanced in a variety of areas.
Contrado Academy is not a traditional academic setup, the courses have been created by professionals working in digital day-in-day-out which covers the practical skills and information that is in demand from employers. Traditional education establishments are great, seriously, go to Colleges and Universities when you are looking for the long term investment. The unfortunately reality for people working in digital though is that employers need skills now, they cannot afford to wait for 1-3 years for a new course to be signed off by the various committees involved then a further 3-4 years for students to graduate. The world has moved on by then. Digital apprenticeships are certainly doing something to address these issues, yet not everyone wants to do an apprenticeship, they just want to complete a short course that gives them the skills and information required to do they job they are doing, do it better or develop their skills for the future.
Take a look at the variety of courses on offer and stay tuned for dates when courses are announced very shortly.
https://academy.contradodigital.com/courses/
Current courses available include;
- Web Development for Beginners
- WordPress for Beginners
- Intermediate WordPress
- Advanced WordPress
- HTML for Beginners
- CSS for Beginners
- JavaScript for Beginners
- Linux Web Server Management for Beginners
- PHP for Beginners
- Java for Beginners
- Java Web Applications for Beginners
- Social Media for Beginners
- Introduction to Digital Marketing
- Google Analytics for Beginners
- Google AdWords for Beginners
- Email Marketing for Beginners
- Ecommerce for Beginners
- Apple iOS Development for Beginners
- Android Development for Beginners
- Search Engine Optimisation SEO for Beginners
- Cyber Security for Beginners
Whether you are looking to train your current staff in the vast array of digital technologies or you are reading this as someone who is looking to enter the world of digital, there are a variety of courses available to suit your needs.
by Michael Cropper | Sep 14, 2016 | Client Friendly, Security |
Probably one of the worst examples we’ve seen for a phishing email recently. Be aware though that these things do still catch people out. When you receive emails like this, always check the email address is from the correct website. Clearly in this case it isn’t. While this information cannot be trusted as this can be easily spoofed, many phishing emails like this one appearing to be from NatWest haven’t even bothered to add in the correct from email address.
Likewise, you will notice that the link they are asking you to click doesn’t go through to a NatWest website. Again, this information can be easily masked so you are best never to click on links in emails which appear to be suspicious. Always make sure that you open your web browser, go to the website directly without clicking on any links in emails to view notifications on your account. If the email was genuine, you will also have a notification within your account with the relevant information on.
Be safe.
by Michael Cropper | Sep 4, 2016 | Thoughts |
This blog post is a personal bugbear of mine when it comes to people working in the digital industry and with technology. The scenario generally plays out as follows;
Client: “We’ve seen this really amazing flashy whoosh thing on {insert big brand website here} and we want you to do this on our website“
Or
Client: “I’ve had this amazing idea, hear me out, {insert the craziest wackiest idea you can imagine that is trying to do something non-website related on a website}
Digital Person / Agency: “Sure, we can look to do that. What a great idea.”…. They then scramble off to talk about how they go about doing this. Internal discussions, questions on Stack Overflow or Facebook WordPress groups or other digital groups before rushing into implementing this idea as quickly as possible to please the client.
This is such a destructive attitude to take and one which not only shows your lack of understanding about the digital world but also the lack of confidence the client has in you to recommend the right solutions. In my experience, whenever a client asks us these similar questions on a regular basis we put a halt to their thought process straight away and get to the bottom of what they are actually trying to achieve.
What do they actually want? When a client comes to you with a solution to their idea, they often haven’t shared with you their initial idea in the first place. It is your job as a digital expert to get to the bottom of what they actually want before blindly jumping into delivering a preconceived solution. I can guarantee that if you just blindly implement what the client wants, you will end up in a very sticky situation further down the line which will result in the client blaming you for implementing their ideas which were ultimately flawed. It is your responsibility as a digital expert to help the client turn their ideas into realities by using the best possible solution for their needs.
To name just a few real world situations recently to highlight this point and why you should not just blindly implement what the client wants. Below are several examples when digital people have been asking us advice on how to implement various requirements from their clients and haven’t had the guts to tell the client no;
- Requirement: Client wants to use WordPress as an intranet (which is certainly possible), and they want to have a directory structure like they see on their computer so it’s easy to find files to use.
- Why this is a bad idea: WordPress doesn’t work like this. Dropbox and other cloud based document sharing facilities do. Don’t go re-inventing the wheel. Tell the client why their solution isn’t the best setup for their requirements and keep telling them until they understand and agree. Blindly trying to implement this kind of file directory style setup in WordPress is just going to cause problems in the long run.
- Requirement: Client wants to use this fancy font from Photoshop on their website. So we implemented this as an image for all headers. Now they’ve said they want to translate their website. How do we go about this?
- Why this is a bad idea: Sorry, things now have to be rebuilt correctly. Images should have never been used for headings as they don’t work very well on mobile devices, aren’t SEO friendly and don’t work from a translations point of view. Not to mention the inherent challenges around which browsers support which fonts on different devices etc. Keep things simple.
- Requirement: Client wants to use their AOL account to send emails from their WordPress website but the emails keep going into people’s spam folders.
- Why this is a bad idea: Emails aren’t meant to be used like this, particularly AOL accounts. Seriously, who still has an AOL account? As a business owner you need to be using suitable email technologies and when sending emails from web applications, there are specific technical aspects that need configuring to get this working correctly.
You get the drift. Blindly implementing requests from clients is a fool’s game. If you are working in the digital industry, please, stop doing this. Instead, take a step back whenever a request comes through and start to think strategically about what they are ultimately trying to achieve and what the best solutions truly are.
Every single website is restrained in some way based on the web hosting setup, the technologies in use, the frameworks that are used and lots of other moving parts. You cannot simply implement something that you’ve seen on one website into another website without fully understanding the technical implications of what this means. Don’t go re-inventing the wheel and quite frankly if the idea the client has come up with is hair brained, tell them, it will save you endless problems in the future. Start to recommend the best solutions based on their requirements instead of simply blindly implementing everything they want.
Remember, the client often has no idea about the finer details of the technical and digital world. All they often see is the visual side of things and don’t understand what goes into creating functional, scalable and reliable systems that are capable of growing with them. We get a lot of work coming through to us when people have gone down this route in the past, with clients working with digital people and agencies who have blindly implemented what they wanted, only to then by told by us that everything needs rebuilding. Hey, I can’t complain, this generates a lot of work for us, but let’s be honest, from a client’s perspective they are paying, two, three or four times for things when digital people keep implementing everything they want blindly and wondering why things aren’t working for them.
Managing client projects is actually relatively simple. Assume they know nothing and question everything that they say. Start to really get to the bottom of what they are looking for, then use this information with your knowledge and expertise to recommend suitable solutions. Please, stop blindly implementing what clients want. In the meantime, we’ll happily keep picking up failed projects and getting thing working correctly. It’s what we’re best at.
by Michael Cropper | Sep 1, 2016 | Client Friendly, News, Security, WordPress |
Over the last few months there have been some really exciting changes happening in the website security world related to encryption. Something which now allows businesses of all shapes and sizes to take encryption seriously without the larger investment previously needed. Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s take a look at what exactly SSL and HTTPS actually is and why it is important.
Google is to Flag Non-Secure Websites
Already SSL certificates are a factor in Google’s search algorithm, meaning that businesses using HTTPS are more prominent in Google’s search results when customers are searching. If this wasn’t enough for you to implement an SSL certificate, then eventually Google will be treating all websites like this that are not using HTTPS;
As a customer, what would you think if this warning came up when you were browsing your favourite websites? You would soon leave the website and begin to distrust the brand, right? Then the same is going through your customer’s minds too. Starting January 2016 Google will begin to flag insecure websites as not secure as can be seen below;
Now is the time to implement SSL on your websites to avoid the mad rush when Google turns this feature on. Read all about the finer details over on Google’s security blog.
Importance of SSL and HTTPS
Getting a little bit technical, SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer which turns the standard HTTP protocol used to access all websites on the internet into a secure connection. What this means in practice is that the connection between yourself typing www.contradodigital.com into the web browser and the web server is encrypted, meaning that no-one can listen in to what data is being sent/retrieved as you go about your day.
Take WordPress as a prime example, whenever you login to your WordPress website, if you are still using HTTP and not HTTPS then anyone listening in on the network can read your username and password in plain text, then use this data to hack into your website and do damage. So if you’re in a café or any other public place to access your website over HTTP, then it is relatively straight forward for people who know what they are doing to see your details. The same is true when you enter a username or password onto any other website on the internet, if they are using HTTP instead of HTTPS, then your password becomes visible to the world if someone is listening in on that network. SSL resolves these issues.
Anyone who is using any kind of login system on their website, whether this is simply for logging in administrators into your content management system, or running an ecommerce website, you should be using SSL. Previously an SSL certificate would have cost anywhere between £150 and £550 just for the certificate itself, plus the added cost of migrating your website from HTTP to HTTPS which can be a considerable cost in itself.
From a user perspective, implementing SSL simply means taking your website from HTTP;
To HTTPS;
End to end encryption to secure your website.
Free SSL Certificates
Over recent months we’ve been experimenting with Let’s Encrypt, the new free certificate authority, the guys who generate the SSL certificates. Let’s Encrypt is backed by the likes of Facebook, Google, Cisco, Mozilla, Akamai, Automattic, Shopify, Sucuri, Hewlett Packard and many more. When Let’s Encrypt was first launched in April 2016, it was still very much in its early stages and quite buggy on a lot of platforms. Thankfully since then, it has become a lot easier to work with and hence is now something we’re recommending all businesses should take a look at for their own websites.
Practicalities
While Let’s Encrypt does bring free SSL certificates to everyone, it’s not quite as straight forward as just clicking a button and you’re good to go. As with all website and web server technologies, there are many moving parts with endless different setups and configurations. While the SSL certificates their self are free, implementing the initial Let’s Encrypt setup on your web server can be time consuming, or even in some cases, not even possible at the moment. Likewise, once you have claimed your free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt, you will likely need to implement various bits of website work to ensure SSL works correctly throughout the website.
Thankfully, we’ve got this town to a tee. Anyone hosting their website with us and running WordPress, we can implement this in no time at all, so get in touch so we can implement your free SSL certificate with minimal investments associated with the implementation of this. For anyone else, drop us an email anyway and we can review your current setup to see if it is capable of implementing the free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt.
For anyone brave enough to have a go their self, here are a few handy resources on some of the technical aspects in the background;
But the likelihood is that you’re not going to be able to implement this yourself, nor should you try if you aren’t competent as you can do some serious damage if you do things wrong. If your current web hosting partner or website team isn’t capable of implementing this or the technology isn’t up to scratch, then it’s probably time to review your current web hosting options;
Update – May 2017
As mentioned when initially publishing this blog post, companies need to act now to avoid losing potential customers.
Google Will Warn Potential Customers Not To Contact You in October….Act Now…
Google has been encouraging website owners to move towards a secure and encrypted internet for over 12 months now and they believe they have given website owners enough time to implement encryption technologies on their website to use SSL, i.e. when people view your website they view https://www.contradodigital.com rather than http://www.contradodigital.com. This means that the connection is encrypted and your customers data is secure when they are submitting things like credit card information or personal information on contact forms.
Unfortunately many websites are still not taking cyber security seriously which is why Google is taking the next step in October. In essence what this change will mean is that if you have not implemented an SSL certificate on your website by this time, anyone wanting to contact you through the contact form on your website using Google Chrome (the most popular web browser in use…) will be told that your website is ‘Not Secure’ which will put potential customers off from entering their details and contacting you. You need to act now to prevent your website being listed as Not Secure to your customers.
Here’s how your Contact Us page will look when people are about to fill out their details. Ask yourself, would you fill in a contact form on a website if you saw this warning message?
Here is an animation of what your contact form would do when people start entering in information;
What you need to do…
If you haven’t implemented an SSL certificate on your website to date, then you need to do so as soon as possible. This can be a relatively straight forward thing to do, or something a little more complex which depends on the technology you’re using in the background. Don’t worry about that though as we have implemented a lot of these for businesses over the last few years across a range of technologies.
Even better, SSL certificates are now FREE which is great as they would previously have set you back several hundred pounds for the certificate alone. So simply drop me an email directly and we can schedule some time in to implement this for you, michael.cropper@contradodigital.com
