PSPINC Official Company Blog

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 116 “Changing with the Times”

5月

20日

We’ve been in business for over 30 years now. But one of the keys to our success is continually learning about our industry. Over time, the technology sector’s changed and evolved drastically. We’ve all, as a result, evolved and adapted along with it. Other businesses, namely very successful ones, have done the same. Take Netflix, for example. Netflix used to just distribute DVDs to customers and in turn, customers would return them after they were done with them. Much like Blockbuster, or the more modern example, Redbox. In 2007, that changed. Netflix went from physically distributing DVDs to streaming film and TV content online. Since then, Netflix disrupted the entertainment space.

Many more streaming platforms popped up afterward as they became direct competitors. However, none of them obtained the market share that Netflix dominated. Now, Netflix creates its own original content as well. And again, other streaming platforms followed by doing the same. Alternatively, Blockbuster no longer exists because they refused to change with the times. PSPINC has grown greatly as a web hosting and email hosting company. But it has since evolved into so much more. Today, we also offer web design and marketing services and develop other online tools for other small businesses. So, the key to sustaining a successful small business is to change as the industry changes.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blockbuster #blog #business #businesstips #change #marketing #netflix #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #redbox #smallbusiness #tech #technology #webdesign #webtools

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 113 “Dreamersi Customers Earn More”

4月

29日

Did you know that Dreamersi, comes with exclusive access to other PSPINC products? For example, Dreamersi customers also have WebdeXpress and InforMakers at their disposable. And they even get special discounts whenever we discount any of our products or services.

WebdeXpress (WDX) is PSPINC’s intuitive website builder and comes with all sorts of great features. WDX makes it easy for customers to design their website, with the option to use a pre-defined template or fully customize it with HTML and CSS. All it takes is one click to download WDX to get started building your website.

InforMakers is another additional tool that’s available for free for our Dreamersi customers. With it, users can easily create custom online forms. It’s usually priced at $8/month for everyone else, but to thank them for their loyalty, Dreamersi customers get it for free. It’s a great feature for businesses because it can be a way to generate more leads and collect data on their customers.

Dreamersi is our premiere web and email hosting service. We developed and designed it in-house, which means we have full control over the digital environment. That then makes it easier to create custom development for customers looking for website features that aren’t offered by other website builders. So, please consider hosting your website with Dreamersi.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customersupport #dreamersi #hosting #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #seo #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #webtools

Mobile App vs. Mobile-Optimized: Which One is Better for Your Business

4月

13日

With more than half (about 54.4%) of website traffic worldwide coming from mobile devices in 2021, making sure your site works on a mobile device is crucial. It not only has to function well but look aesthetically pleasing too. But with all the focus on mobile devices, businesses have started investing in developing an app. It guarantees that it’ll work well on a phone, as long as enough testing goes into the process. And the hope is that it’ll look good with so many people spending a lot of time and work creating it. So, which one’s better: a site that looks good on a mobile device or an app?

A Mobile App

a hand holding a mobile phone with apps displayed on the homescreen

A mobile app is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, which can also include tablets. But building one out takes a lot of time, effort, and money. If you’re building an app in-house, it takes some of the cost because it means you won’t have to hire a development partner, but the development process will still be costly. Not to mention the fact that it will consist of a much longer process compared to optimizing a site for mobile.

The app development process involves building out the concept behind the app, creating a layout for how it’ll function, designing it for a good user experience, testing it to determine where users may find friction in the process, and scanning for necessary bug fixes. Only then can the app go live. Even after that, it’ll still need to be monitored and updated consistently.

Despite the long and costly process, an app does have its advantages:

• Improves brand recognition
• Re-engages existing customers on a deeper level
• Keeps your business at the top of customers’ minds through mobile push notifications
• Presents a new opportunity for sales

Optimizing a Site for Mobile

a woman sitting cross-legged on a small thin mattress on the floor while looking at something on her phone

A site that works on a mobile device is vital for any business to make it today. Technically, every URL should work on a mobile device when users open it in a mobile browser. The difference between it working and optimizing it is making sure there isn’t any friction in the customer’s experience. For example, if you’ve ever opened a website just to see a cut-off image or been forced to zoom in or out to click on something, you probably didn’t stay on the site for long. After all, it looks outdated and unprofessional, which lowers the business’s credibility and deters you from going further.

To effectively optimize a site for mobile, your website not only needs to function, but it also needs to look nice too. But even when users access your business’ site on a desktop, the design should be clean without too many distractions. Thankfully, themes and templates offered by website builders already have this all figured out for you. Including WordPress, which comes as an easy install with all of PSPINC's web hosting options, Dreamersi, YourHost Neo, and Parcom. For users building their site from scratch, using a single or double column layout, effectively utilizing white space, and reducing the number of items in the navigation bar are things you should keep in mind when designing your site. Overall, businesses should be utilizing responsive design, which will adjust design element placements to fit in the available space when browser size changes.

Which One is Better for your Business?

two women sitting on a couch, showing each other what's on their phones

While it may seem obvious to choose a mobile-optimized site over a mobile app (based on the sheer time, effort, and money involved in the development process), there are times when using a mobile app is preferable. If your business has a product or service that causing some friction in their overall purchase experience, an app could fix those problems.

As an example, PSPINC is currently developing an app for DENREI, an invite-only social platform that uses email to interact with your online community. For now, users have to set up the email client using either Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail. While it isn’t too hard of a task, it adds an extra step to the process that could potentially prevent users from moving forward. Given that it’s arguably the most important step in the process, PSPINC decided an app would be the best solution.

If you’re a business wondering if an app is the right choice for you, here are some questions to consider:

• Who is the target market? If your company’s audience skews a little younger, making your site mobile-friendly is the least you should be doing.
• What does the customer’s experience look like? Is there a step preventing them from converting them into paying or loyal customers? Is it something that can be solved with a mobile app?
• How likely is it your customer will download our app? If you’re going to put in the work needed to build a mobile app, you want to make sure people will download it.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#app #brand #branding #business #denrei #digitalmarketing #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #mobileapp #mobiledevice #pspinc #pushnotifications #smallbusiness #webdesign #webdeveloper #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitedesign #wordpress

Website Design Tips for Non-Designers

1月

26日

Creating a visually appealing website is crucial for any business. But it can be a daunting task for a non-designer. Perhaps that’s why many businesses outsource this task to companies like Pacific Software Publishing Inc. (PSPINC) who have the expertise to not only design websites but build them as well. But there are a few things every business owner should know when it comes to website design.

Visual Hierarchy

website design outline drawn in a notebook with a phone sitting next to it

For a website, a visual hierarchy controls how the end-user receives information. In other words, it tells users what to focus on first. When looking at the sizing of content, whether it be text, images, or videos, our eyes immediately go to what’s biggest first. So, with that knowledge, it’s easy to see why enlarging content is the most effective way to tell users that it’s the most important part of the site. Additionally, you can use text and different colors to signify what’Fs important. For text, the use of headings, sub-headings, and body text tell users what to focus on first. And this, again, is because of the sizing.

As for colors, this can be a little trickier to get right because it’ll be different for every site. Of course, certain colors work well together, but a lot of this will come down to branding guidelines and streamlining the user’s experience. But a good rule of thumb is to have black text overlaying a white background. It’s usually the default choice in a lot of website builders and it’s the easiest to read. But adding other colors to the site’s overall design will be up to you, your brand, and what values your business wants to represent.

Readability

laptop open to a site called Swagger with Swagger-branded items placed next to it

There’s no point in anyone visiting a website if they can’t read anything that’s on the page because everything’s a different color, size, or font. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many sites do this. Whatever color you use, keep your brand in mind. If your website looks completely different from your company’s logo and social media content, it shouldn’t be.

As for text on your site, sizes, fonts, line spacing, weight (bold or not), and colors should be consistent throughout all pages on your website. Regardless of color, here are a few things to keep in mind: use headings, sub-headings, and images to help break up the body text. Not only will this help improve your site’s overall SEO, but it’ll also increase the likelihood that users will stay on your webpage. After all, no one wants to just read a huge block of text online.

UX Design

UX design, for those who don’t know, stands for user experience and refers to how people interact with a product. From a web designer’s point of view, it includes keeping the overall look of the site consistent across all pages. This means that the navigation bar, color scheme, fonts, and writing style look the same on every page a user views. But before making it all look pretty, focus on usability first. By that, I mean, make sure that everything on the site works the way it’s supposed to. The design is moot if the site doesn’t work.

From a web development standpoint, you’ll have to use responsive design. What that usually entails is using percentages as opposed to pixels or inches when writing out your CSS code. However, large website builders have this already built-in for you, which makes it easier for you.

Mobile Optimization

Last but not least, is mobile optimization. Making sure your site’s optimized for mobile is increasingly important because more than half (almost 93%) of website traffic is mobile, according to Statista. But mobile optimization means more than just making sure your site’s accessible via a mobile device. Rather, it involves making sure that your website visitors have a user-friendly experience on your site when using their phones. What this means is making sure that users can still navigate the site well and that there isn’t content that’s being cut off.

A site that’s well optimized for mobile devices usually includes moving the main navigation bar to the side (opposed to the top) and resizing practically everything on your site. But like I mentioned earlier, that’s what responsive design is, which is what big website developers already have built in. However, get in the practice of manually checking anyway, just to be sure.

But if you still need help building and/or designing your website, contact PSPINC for all your web development and design needs!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #businesstips #color #design #mobile #mobileoptimization #pacificsoftwarepublishing #responsivedesign #smallbusiness #text #tips #userexperience #uxdesign #visualhierarchy #webdesign #webdevelopment #website #websitedesign #websitedevelopment

Why Branding is More Than Just a Logo

1月

12日

When you think of branding, you probably think of the big brands: Apple, Coca-Cola, Netflix, you name it. For brands as big as those, you can almost immediately picture their logos. And that’s the true testament to how successful those companies are. But branding is much more than just the logo. However, the word, branding or brand, is somewhat of an obscure concept. If you were to ask people what they think it means, everyone you ask will probably come up with something different. But the real answer is actually quite simple: A brand is a promise. The promise that your company will live up to every time someone interacts with your brand.

Apple as an Example

(from left) mac laptop, iPad, and iPhone

But what does that attribute to in practice? Well, let’s take a look at Apple, arguably one of the world’s largest brands. Steve Jobs, the man behind it all, has said in the past that Apple owes its success to keeping its core values the same. When it all comes down to it, Apple’s core values consist of building the best product for people. The company’s certainly changed and evolved as the world and technology have. But it still keeps that idea as the backbone of the company.

While almost every other tech company out there has expanded their product line, pushing them out one by one, Apple’s stayed true to its promise. They’ve certainly added more products to their lineup, but adding to it isn’t their main purpose. And it certainly isn’t what they’re known for. There’s a reason why there are over 1.65 billion Apple devices in active use in the world and why Apple’s revenue hit approximately $274.3 billion in 2020. It’s not because Apple keeps coming out with hundreds of products every year (because they don’t). It’s because Apple delivers on the promise they’ve made to their customers: they build the best devices, no matter how the world changes.

The Branding Process

But for any brand, a logo is just one part of creating a brand identity. But just because there’s more to branding than just a logo, it doesn’t mean that a logo doesn’t matter. After all, when you think of Apple, you think of its logo. It’s synonymous with what their brand stands for and how they want you to feel about their brand. And that’s not an accident. It’s not just an image they place on their products. It’s also the color palette and tone they use in everything they put out there. It’s why branding is a process.

Creating a visually appealing and effective brand identity is vital. With a strong brand identity, you’re then left with clear guidelines that set the tone for everything your brand does from that point forward. That includes everything from the images your brand shares on social media, the language you use in your content, and what your website looks like. And brands can either do all that work internally or they can outsource it. In fact, PSPINC even has services specifically designed to help with that branding process, which includes logo design, custom website design, and marketing services.

It can be a long and involved process but if your brand can reach Apple status, it’s worth it in the end. With clear brand guidelines, your brand will be consistent in everything it does, which is the key to a successful brand.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#apple #blog #brand #brandidentity #branding #businesstips #cocacola #iphone #logo #mac #marketing #netflix #promise #stevejobs #webdesign

Custom Branding QR Codes Feature is now Available on Click It Audio

1月

5日

We are thrilled to announce that we've released an all-new feature to Click It Audio that allows users to add a logo or image to their QR code. If you already have an account with Click It Audio, all you need to do is:

Login to Click It Audio

Click the QR Code icon

Upload your image under "Add Logo Image"

Resize your image using the logo image scale

Save your custom options, if desired

Download your QR code

What is Click It Audio?

Click It Audio

ClickItAudio.com

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#audio #audioembed #blog #businesstips #clickitaudio #embedaudio #pspinc #qrcode #qrcodes #seo #smallbusiness #technology #webdesign #websites

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol. 94 "Satisfaction with your website"

12月

17日

Does your company have a website? Is it easy to understand what your company does by looking at your homepage? Do you receive inquiries from visitors to your website? On a scale of 1 to 100, how would you rate your website? I'm sure many of you are wondering if there is something more you can do.

I think the best way to evaluate the usefulness of a website is to see if it is generating new business for the company. How many people are visiting your website? How long do they stay? Where did the visitors come from? Did they come from search engines, social networking sites, or by typing your web address into their browser directly?

What are you doing to attract people to your website? Do you use blogs, social networking sites, or post on YouTube? A website is not an advertising medium, so it is not enough to create a website to attract people. The website needs to be advertised to a large number of people in various ways.

The setup of a website also needs to be designed in such a way that it can easily attract people. A completed website is not the end of the story. The content of the website needs to be updated to attract repeat visitors. Only through these actions will people start to come to your website.

If you have any concerns about your website, please contact us at Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. We offer a full range of services from web design, production, hosting, management, updating, and marketing. If the performance of your current website is not receiving an ”A” grade in your mind, please give us a call.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#SEO #SearchEngineOptimization #WebDesign #WebDevelopment #Website

3 tips for a better mobile website

11月

24日

We often spout the virtues of mobile web design. With approximately half of all web traffic being viewed on mobile devices, we cannot afford to ignore the mobile experience of our customers and website visitors.

Below are 3 tips for providing a better mobile web experience for people who are on your website.

#1 Have a well organized mobile navigation

There is nothing worse than being on a mobile device and having to pinch and zoom to click on a link to a pay you wish to visit.

A fairly traditional approach is to include what is affectionately referred to as a “hamburger menu” in the top corner. Clicking this will then expand out the full navigation with large, clear click areas.

#2 Make sure your site loads fast

Mobile devices are often using cellular data service rather than a super fast wifi signal. The slower your site loads, the more likely they are to click that back button and select a different link.

Make sure you are using images scaled and optimized for the web and try to avoid too many external resource-heavy effects.

#3 Create a clean, single-column layout

If you attempt to have multiple column, complex layout on a smartphone - you are not thinking about your mobile users. Anything extending outside of the view space of a mobile device will be cut off and hidden. This forces the user to not only scroll up and down to view your content, but left and right as well.

This is not only unintuitive but it is hugely inconvenient. Ultimately, it is encouraging your users to abandon your site and seek information elsewhere.

—

When it comes time to refresh or update your website, please consider the mobile web experience. If you have any questions or want us to audit your existing site - please let us know. We have Designers and Developers on staff to help make your mobile experience the best it can be.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#MobileWeb #MobileWebsite #Smartphone #WebDesign #Website

Using stock photos on your website

9月

29日

When it comes to your website, it is really important that not only is it informational, but that it is visually appealing enough to hold your user’s attention.

A quick way to have a user lose trust not only in your website, but potentially your business, would be to load a bunch of poor quality, outdated, and unprofessional-looking imagery throughout your website. Remember, your website is an extension of your brand.

For users that don’t have the library of photos or budget to hire a photographer, stock photographs are an option.

What are stock photos?

Simply put, stock photos are professionally shot photos that are licensed for use.

Tips for using stock photos

1. Make sure you have read the usage license before using an image
Stock photos have specific licenses in terms of how you can use them. This could include how it is used (web or print), how many times you are allowed to use it, or whether the image requires attribution (essentially a written acknowledgment of where you got the photo form).

Important: NEVER should you simply search Google images and use those on your website. You open yourself up to legal liability if you are using images that you do not own the license for.

2. There is such thing as too many stock photos
Yes, stock photos certainly look slick and can provide a professional look to your website. However, be careful - adding too many stock photos will have your site losing that “personal touch.” Something that many small businesses actively pursue to stand out from the competition.

Remember, you want photos on your website that help represent what your business is all about. When you use stock photos you run the risk of seeing that same photo on somebody else’s website.

3. Sources for stock photos (paid and free)
There are a TON of stock photo websites out there - both free and paid. With paid stock photos you often buy credits and can spend them on photos. Again, always read the usage license before you purchase a photo. Some sites will limit how you use the images you purchase the license for. The benefit of a paid stock photo is you are going to have more variety and you are far less likely to see the same photo creep up on the competition’s website.

On the flip side, free stock photo websites have their own usage license requirements that it is important to pay attention to. Some require attribution on your source material when using images, others do not.

Below are a few stock photo sites both paid and free for your reference.

Shutterstock (paid)

iStockPhoto (paid)

Pexels (free)

Unsplash (free)

StockSnap.io (free)

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#Photos #StockPhotos #WebDesign #WebDevelopment #WebsitePhotos

PSPINC What's New Newsletter Vol.79 "Is your website where it should be?"

9月

3日

Vol. 79

When you read a book, newspaper, or magazine, what is your purpose? Whatever you are reading, I believe there is a purpose. It may be to gain some knowledge you don't have, or simply because it's fun or exciting. So when do you read a dictionary? When it comes to dictionaries, it might be better to say that you use them rather than read them. No one reads a dictionary or a phone book from the first page to the last page.

So, is a website a book or a dictionary? Let's assume that a website is used to introduce a company. In this case, it would be safe to say that no one would read the website from the beginning to the end. This means that the website is not a book, or at least not one that will entertain the reader. In this case, I think it is correct to think of it as you would a dictionary.

A dictionary is designed to make it easy to find the information you need. Your website is also designed in a way that visitors can easily find the information they need. Is the information organized? Is the information arranged in a way that matches the level of need? When you think about it, there is a difference in the design concept between a website for distributing information and a marketing page for creating a corporate image.

When creating a website, you need to think about whether the appearance or the information is important. Pacific Software Publishing Inc.'s hosting service allows you to freely use any website design you want. If you want to easily set up, edit, and manage your website, we provide a free website building tool called WebdeXpress.

If you need help designing, developing, editing, upgrading, or even scaling down your website, please contact Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. at any time.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.
info@pspinc.com
https://pspinc.com
1404 140th Place NE, Bellevue, WA 98007 USA
800-232-3989
425-957-0808

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#BusinessWebsite #Dictionary #PSPINC #WebDesign #WebHosting #Website

PSPINC Official Company Blog

フリースペース

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 116 “Changing with the Times”

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 113 “Dreamersi Customers Earn More”

Mobile App vs. Mobile-Optimized: Which One is Better for Your Business

A Mobile App

Optimizing a Site for Mobile

Which One is Better for your Business?

Website Design Tips for Non-Designers

Visual Hierarchy

Readability

UX Design

Mobile Optimization

Why Branding is More Than Just a Logo

Apple as an Example

The Branding Process