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Unwanted bot traffic can wreak havoc on your website. Left unchecked, it can cause slow loading times, skewed analytics, and unnecessary costs. To help avoid this, in this blog post, we’ll delve into six effective strategies to keep these digital intruders at bay. Understanding the Nature of Bot Traffic Firstly, it is essential to note…
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Helping You Overcome the Overwhelm In the digital age, a professional website is crucial for any business looking to establish a strong online presence. However, creating a new website can often feel like navigating through a maze of confusing technical jargon and complex processes. To help you feel less daunted, we’ve compiled answers to some…
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A key element of eCommerce is taking payments through your website! However, there are a plethora of eCommerce payment methods available. Obviously, you want something reliable and secure so payments are processed successfully (and not accidentally duplicated!). But you also need something your customers trust and find simple to use so you don’t lose them…
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Starting an eCommerce business can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Whether you already have a brick-and-mortar shop or are starting a side hustle, with the right know-how, you can get your eCommerce business up and running in no time. Here are five initial steps you need to take to start an eCommerce…
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WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available today. It is used by millions of websites, from small blogs to large corporate sites. So what kind of website is WordPress good for? Well, here at Rigorous Digital, we happen to think it’s an excellent choice for most websites. But, in this…
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You’re looking to have a new website built, and you’ve reached out to a few different development agencies, but they’ve all come back with different prices. Very different prices! They’re all within the same area, so you’ve ruled out varying costs due to location. Are some just overpriced and trying to convince you to spend…
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Deciding on the best product categories for your eCommerce website may be more important than you think. Rather than being tempted to start with as many product categories as possible, hoping to attract more customers, this can actually have the opposite effect. Making sure your products are well organised and easy to navigate for your…
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As an avid reader, I have gone through many business books. I have to say, even amongst the best sellers, some have been more helpful than others. There are reams of titles available, and we only have so many hours in the day. To save you some time deciding which are worth reading, here are…
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You want to set up a website for your venue, but what should you include? Of course, there’s the usual generic website stuff, like a home page, reviews, etc. However, a venue website differs from other websites. Your conversion rate is based on ticket sales rather than physical purchases. Here are our eight recommendations to…
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Launching a new eCommerce site can be an exciting stage in a retail business. Done well, it can help you reach more customers and make more sales. But, one of the first decisions you need to make is which eCommerce platform to go with! And with so many options on the market, it can be…
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Awareness Days are fantastic for showing the personality behind your eCommerce business. They are an opportunity to let potential customers get to know you better and subsequently build trust with them. You can also build engagement and raise brand awareness by getting your eCommerce business involved on an awareness day. Hence, they can also be…
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Much like a car, to keep your WordPress website running smoothly, you’ll need to keep up with a regular WordPress maintenance schedule. Not sure where to start? With the following WordPress Maintenance ten-point checklist, not only will you be taking preventative measures to protect your website. But you’ll also be well-equipped to swiftly manage any…
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Having a website that works well for your nonprofit organisation is complex, with many parties to consider. You may have service users, volunteers, donors, partners, trustees, external bodies, the list goes on. So it’s crucial to make sure that the various people who visit your site can quickly find answers to their questions about your…
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Customer reviews and recommendations not only provide excellent social proof to potential customers that your company is worth buying from, but they are also what’s known as user-generated content (UGC). 90% of customers in a study from TurnTo said that UGC influenced their buying decisions far more than email marketing or search engine results. That…
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Are you looking for an effective yet budget-friendly marketing technique to boost sales and grow your business? Recent statistics show that 50% of people arriving at a retailer’s site from paid ads are more likely to buy than those who come from an organic link. It’s hardly a surprise then that so many businesses choose…
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Updated 13th December 2023 Does your charity have a Christmas closure to enable staff and volunteers to recharge ahead of the new year? Here are five steps you can take online to reduce the risk of lots of unanswered messages and website issues on your return. 1. Add a Message to Your Website You can include…
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When you’re looking to increase orders on your eCommerce website, one of our top tips is to offer free shipping. Unfortunately, with so many large companies offering this, customers have become accustomed to not paying for postage. Therefore, not offering free shipping can be a real pain point, putting them off completing their order on…
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So, you’ve decided you need a new website? Perhaps you don’t have a website at all and have recognised the overwhelming need to introduce one? Maybe you’ve already got one but feel it needs a bit of a refresh? Whatever the reason behind working on your website is, you’re probably considering contacting a web design…
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Using digital marketing for charity is an excellent tool to spread awareness around your cause, enabling you to do as much good as you can. Building loyal social media followers who share and engage with your content then amplify your message even further! We know that one of the biggest challenges in charities is resources….
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10 Tips for Your eCommerce Business You’re pleased you’ve attracted a new potential customer to your eCommerce website. But now, you need to entice them to make a purchase (multiple purchases would be even better!) rather than have them leave your site empty-handed. Here at Rigorous Digital, we’ve compiled a list of our top 10…
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The product pages are the area of your website to showcase what you sell. Much like with a physical shop, you want to show off your goods in their best light and give the customer as much information as possible to help them come to a buying decision. But what details should you include? In…
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Until recently, here at Rigorous Digital, we offered traditional white label web development. However, we’ve realised this isn’t the most effective way to serve our customers, or yours! So, while you might have arrived here looking for white label web development, we’re excited to offer you something new; we work with agencies on a partnership…
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A pay per click (PPC) campaign can add fantastic value to your business’s marketing strategy, especially when one of your goals is to generate more visitors to your website or online shop. In short, PPC is a type of advertising in which, as it is named, you only pay per click, so when someone clicks…
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Your charity website is an ideal opportunity to showcase to the world all the fantastic work you do. No matter how you get the word out about your charitable activities, interested individuals will often arrive at your homepage. From word of mouth to social media, most people looking to find out more will enter your... Read More Read in 3 minutes
Is it worth the effort? We already have a contact form, so should we bother with a chatbot as well? Do customers like them? These are questions we get asked all the time. And the quick answer to these questions is: YES! Sure, they take some time to set up. And yes, contact forms are…
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From Bot Traffic to Wireframe, websites are a minefield for jargon. And all too often, “the experts” like to yield it like a secret superpower! Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” We’ve put together a list of frequently used website jargon with a brief explanation to…
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So you’re creating a new website for your eCommerce business. At the front of your mind are probably the home page and product pages. A common mistake is to forget about the checkout page and not consider some of the intricacies around postage for eCommerce. This can lead to problems further down the line, e.g….
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As a nonprofit, did you know you may be eligible for up to $10,000 a month (approx £7,158.50 at today’s exchange rate) in Google search ad spends through Google Ad Grants? Just think about what you could do with that to meet your goals for the year! As you’ve probably guessed, planning is the key. …
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Updated 13th December 2023 The end of the year is almost upon us, and what a year it has been! Like us, you may be taking a break to recharge ahead of the new year. But, as with physical premises, there are a few steps you need to take with your eCommerce Business before you…
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While there’s many a content management system (CMS) that would claim to be ‘powering the Internet’ – or on the way to doing so – few can declare this status as emphatically as WordPress can. Indeed, recent figures suggest that as of 2020, the platform underpins a whopping 36% of the web, which is a…
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So you’ve decided to go down the theme route for your new WordPress website. The next step is to choose which WordPress theme to use as the base. But where do you start with the myriad of options out there? There are a few things to bear in mind when short-listing WordPress themes. It’s essential…
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You know you need a new WordPress Website. But you’re not sure whether to go down the design or theme route? Whether you’re a new business or going for a rebrand, it can be hard to know the best approach to take. You want your WordPress website to work hard and meet your business requirements….
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Updated November 2021 Halloween and Bonfire Night are behind us, which can only mean one thing; the countdown to Christmas is on. Black Friday (26th November this year) is generally regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping season. But what does that mean for you if you are in the third sector? If you…
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October 21st – 25th 2019 was International Charity Fraud Awareness Week. Each day covered a key theme; understanding charity fraud, fundraising (donation) fraud, cybercrime & cybersecurity, internal (insider) fraud & keeping data safe. In case you missed it, here is a round-up of our tips from our social media updates throughout the week on how…
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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in the UK on 25th May 2018. GDPR is a data protection framework provided by the EU and regulates how organisations store, process and protect people’s data. It replaces the earlier Data Protection Act and is enforced here in the UK by the Information Commissioners Office….
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With the recent alleged concern from supporters regarding RNLIs 2% spending overseas, have you considered how you show your supporters where their contributions go? Making your figures visual can really help you stand out whether this is in your Annual Report, on your website or ideally both. That way existing and potential supporters are able…
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Do you run an eCommerce business? Are you fed up of abandoned carts and high bounce rates? The below infographic lists 10 statistics which may be affecting your eCommerce website as well as what to do about them to gain customers and increase sales. We’ve compiled the above statistics which show that it’s more important…
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Search advertising is a method of attracting more customers to your website via specific adverts that will appear in the search results when potential customers search for related terms or on other websites that they are using. More often than not this is in the form of Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) such as Google…
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Update; The Blurt Education Programme ended 29th July 2022. To mark the end of May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, Rigorous are excited and proud to announce that as of 30th May 2019 10% of all proceeds from all future sales of any of our WordPress support packages will go to The Blurt Foundation to assist…
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Your customer calls you up and asks you if your site’s safe to visit. When you Google yourself, you see those five horrible words under your site’s listing: “This site may be hacked“. What do you do next? Find out what Google knows Google’s decided your site’s hacked, but how do you find out why?…
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Adding more to the bottom line of your WordPress eCommerce shop will often come down to new customer acquisition; getting new people to buy your stuff. Whilst we really shouldn’t forget our existing customers, this post will go into some detail on different techniques you can employ to either get new customers or push more…
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Wordpress is a solid, flexible and scalable choice for your Wordpress Ecommerce website. You’re probably already using WooCommerce to power your Wordpress Ecommerce shop but what can you do to really improve your Ecommerce revenue through your Wordpress site? Here’s what you can do to really get your profits up. Speed your Wordpress Ecommerce site... Read More Read in 3 minutes
On 25th May, 2018, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes law across all EU countries (and yes, despite Brexit that does include the UK for the foreseeable future!) If you’re running a WordPress ecommerce website using Woocommerce, you might be wondering what you’ll need to do to make yourself compliant; after all, ecommerce involves…
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Boring but somewhat important note: General Data Protection Regulation compliance (GDPR compliance) and how Gravity Forms GDPR compliance is implemented is a legal topic and it's best to seek qualified legal advice regarding its implementation in your business. Although this article offers technical detail about some aspects of its implementation, it in no way constitutes... Read More Read in 2 minutes
Website design is the exciting bit of having a website. Website support and maintenance is the stuff that happens after your website goes live and it’s very easy to see it as something unimportant you can neglect. I’d like to make the case that website support and maintenance is just as important as the build... Read More Read in 2 minutes
Having a plugin hacked on your website is a horrible thing to happen. Firstly there is the reputational damage – a hacked plugin can mean your website automatically redirects somewhere unpleasant, is covered with adverts for unsavoury things or simply isn’t there. The plugin hack can also lead to longer-term damage if search engines such…
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There are lots of web design companies out there offering WordPress website packages. So how do you make sure you have chosen the package that is right for your business? To my way of thinking, the elements of WordPress website packages can be divided into two categories. The first is the essentials: all WordPress website…
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At one level, WordPress is very simple to use, which is one of the reasons it’s so popular. Adding content, changing content & deleting content is very straightforward & can be done by almost anyone, regardless of their technical skills. At this level, WordPress technical support is rarely required. No WordPress technical support needed? Unfortunately,…
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WordPress is one of the world’s most popular website content management systems for good reason. It’s endlessly flexible, easy to work with and meets all the latest web standards. Unfortunately, because it’s one of the world’s most popular website content management systems, it’s also one of the most vulnerable to attack from hackers. So what…
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Keywords are the words and phrases that people trying to find a product or service like yours will type into Google (other search engines are available). You need to make sure that these words are included in the content of your website – check this Web 20 content to get a clue. Not sure what…
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So, you’ve got a WordPress website. You’ve got a couple of clever plugins that, with a little bit of customisation by your web developer, have given your site exactly the functionality it needs at a fraction of the cost of developing something from the ground up. Great! Except you’ve found you’ve got a problem with…
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Kaptinlin’s Striking theme for WordPress is widely thought to one of the most powerful themes you can purchase for your website. It’s billed as the ‘ultimate responsive WordPress theme’ and it seems that plenty of people agree – over 17,000 sites use it and that number keeps growing. It’s easy to see why Striking is…
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You’re told that WordPress website monitoring is important. But why is it important to monitor your WordPress website? And what does it mean? What WordPress website monitoring means when you Google it When you Google “WordPress website monitoring”, you quickly see that most people take it to mean monitoring your website’s uptime (that is, the…
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So, you’ve made the biggest decision about your website. You’re going to use WordPress. Now for the next biggest decision: your WordPress site developer. How do you make sure you’ve chosen the WordPress site developer who’s right for you? Here are my five top tips. Ask for a WordPress site developer recommendation First of all,…
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In the early days of WordPress, the joy of it was that you could update your website yourself and didn’t need any technical expertise. These days, the joy of being able to update your own website is still there: in fact, it’s probably the main reason you chose a WordPress site. But there’s also a…
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There are lots of reasons for choosing a WordPress website. For many companies it’s the ability WordPress gives you to add and change content without the need to go through a third party. This is undoubtedly a big advantage. However, as you’ve probably discovered, having the ability to update your own website content is not…
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So, you’re managing your WordPress site well. You’re finding it easy to add / amend / restructure content and all is well. But then you hit a brick wall. Something goes wrong or you can’t work out how to do something. Suddenly, you need WordPress help and you need it fast. But is it OK…
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In the last post I talked about how joining the ranks of the WordPress experts was something you should consider doing. On the other hand, I think there’s a stronger argument for deciding that rather than even thinking about becoming a WordPress expert yourself you should simply enlist the help of someone who already is…
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A few years ago, updating a website was a laborious, highly technical affair. Adding a news story or details of a new product was something that needed to be done by the experts in your web department (if you were a big company) or by your freelance web designer (if you were an SME). These... Read MoreRead in 2 minutes
What is a WordPress theme? Before we consider when you might need WordPress theme support, let’s take a step back and answer the question that many of you may be asking. What is a WordPress theme and do I have one? Your WordPress theme is basically the design of your website and the way the... Read More
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You know those update WordPress site notifications you see when you log into WordPress? What do you do when you see them? Take the necessary action and update your WordPress site? Or ignore them because your site is working fine and, as the old saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’? If you’re…
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So you’ve got a WordPress website. Congratulations – in my opinion you’ve chosen (or had chosen for you) one of the best web content management systems (CMSs) in the world. But I’m not sure it’s enough on its own. Having a great CMS that makes it easy to add and update information is no good…
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One of the best things about WordPress is the support forums. They are where WordPress users all over the world post problems and provide solutions. When WordPress support forums are indispensable If you have any queries, can’t figure something out or have just got a problem with your WordPress site, WordPress support forums are the best place... Read More
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(Header image courtesy of Sally Mahoney) Some years ago, my good friend (and client) Jonathan Pollinger mentioned to me he followed Chris Brogan’s strategy of choosing 3 words instead of making a New Year’s resolution. You can read about Chris’ three words for 2015 on his website but I thought this year I’d try this trick too. Chris’ suggestion…
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Websites are often designed, built and delivered with website maintenance being an afterthought, or not at all. After the amendment period (ours is 30 days, which is about industry average) the website's all yours to do with as you see fit. It's at this point websites usually get left to their own devices; blogs with... Read MoreRead in 2 minutes
There are a multitude of online sales chat & online support clients out there which, when installed on your website, allow you to communicate in real-time with your visitors. “Great!” you may think “I can talk to all my visitors, provide great customer service and increase my conversion rate!”. This post is all about describing…
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More and more we’re finding ourselves working with skilled partners to deliver web site and web applications that really deliver. We’re very proud if our latest work on the Vanessa Arbuthnott Website, which we think shows the excellence that can be provided by working with expert partners. Vanessa Arbuthnott approached Jealous Design with a brief…
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Today, an email dropped into my inbox from Number10.gov.uk; a website which allows each eligible member of the UK to sign petitions online which the government may then respond to. I was less than impressed with its contents to say the least.
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