The IT Nerd

 GoDaddy today announced a national partnership with Futurpreneur for the Canadian launch of Empower by GoDaddy, a global community program equipping entrepreneurs with the training, digital tools, and expert guidance needed to accelerate their entrepreneurial journeys and grow their businesses online.

In collaboration with Futurpreneur, a national non-profit which has delivered financing, mentorship and resources for diverse young entrepreneurs aged 18-39 for over 25 years across Canada, Empower by GoDaddy will support aspiring entrepreneurs with dedicated training and educational resources. This collaboration provides passionate entrepreneurs with access to workshops and intensive bootcamps in both English and French, curated by Futurpreneur, as well as access to a global network of business experts. The Empower curriculum offers a chance to learn new skills in key areas from website building, e-commerce design and brand development, to better understanding search engine optimization tools and digital marketing on social media platforms.

The first workshops, titled “Website Best Practices” (in English) and “Les meilleures pratiques du Web” (in French) will focus on how to strategically build a website and improve a business’ digital presence. The next round of workshops, “Social Media Best Practices” (August 10, 2022, in English) and “Les meilleures pratiques des médias sociaux” (August 17, 2022, in French), will help entrepreneurs to better understand how social media can be leveraged to support their business goals.

Resources that Close a Gap for Small Businesses

According to a recent study conducted by Logit Group on behalf of GoDaddy Canada, small business owners see increasing value in digital tools and having an online presence. Yet nearly one-quarter of businesses reported unfamiliarity and a general lack of knowledge with digital tools.  

Understanding these challenges, the Empower by GoDaddy program is built on years of experience to help small business owners close the knowledge and skills gap in a business world facing digital transformation. With access to GoDaddy’s 10-course online curriculum and resources, participants can join workshops hosted by Futurpreneur and led by a GoDaddy expert to further empower them to take their first steps in building, managing and growing their online presence.

All Empower by GoDaddy program participants will receive a free two-year subscription to the GoDaddy Websites + Marketing commerce website builder tool, as well as a .com, .org or .ca domain name of their choice for two years. Participants can also access monthly live sessions on digital presence topics, hosted by Futurpreneur and facilitated by GoDaddy customer support experts.  

To learn more about Futurpreneur and Empower by GoDaddy and how entrepreneurs across Canada can register for the workshops hosted by Futurpreneur, visit:futurpreneur.ca/myonlinebusiness

If you’re a GoDaddy customer of some description, be it you host a website or email, you have been pwned by hackers. Bleeping Computer broke the news last night that up to 19 million customers, which is their entire customer base, have been informed that their web hosting account credentials had been compromised. The breach appears to have occurred on October 19, 2019, according to the State of California Department of Justice, with which the disclosure notification email sample [Warning: PDF] was filed.

Now here’s what you need to know:

• The breach is limited only to hosting accounts and did not involve customer accounts or the personal information stored within them.
• No evidence was found to suggest that any files were modified or added to the affected accounts.
• It is not clear if data was copied.
• GoDaddy will provide a complimentary years’ worth of security and malware removal services for those customers affected/

Now chances are that if you are affected, GoDaddy will have forced a password reset which you will have to go through to get access to your account again. But if I were you, if you are a customer of GoDaddy, I would reset your password anyway.

Meanwhile, GoDaddy has some explaining to do. Hopefully in front of a national government or two so that they are held fully accountable for anything that they might have done to contribute this situation.

What do you buy for the father who has everything? What gift can you give that will help new graduates launch their professional careers? GoDaddy has made shopping for last-minute gifts for Canadian dads and new graduates quick, easy and affordable.  With GoDaddy’s domain name registration, in just a few clicks, a personalized .CA domain name can be registered for people on your gift list.

Want to show them even more love? Build them a GoDaddy website using GoDaddy’s easy, do-it-yourself Website Builder, with hundreds of customizable designs. Simply select a layout, adjust the colours, replace the photos with your own (or choose from any of the 8,700 included stock photos) and then add your own text.

Some gift-giving ideas:

• Register a .CA domain with dad’s name, so he’s got his claim on the Internet
• Build dad a site that shows all the ways he’s the best
• If dad is a small business owner, build him a site to showcase and help grow his business
• Register a .CA domain for your new grads so they can build an online portfolio or presence as they embark on their new career
• If you’re a dad, don’t wait for the kids: Reward yourself with your own domain name on Father’s Day!

If you’re not sure where to begin, consider this: GoDaddy Canada has registered more than 2 million domain names that include a person’s name, or a variation thereof. When it comes to personalized domains, Canadians register for domains featuring their full names the most often, followed by their first initial and last name. Web domain names featuring just a family last name, or just a person’s first name, follow in popularity.

From June 16 to June 30, show your Canadian spirit by getting your loved one a .CA domain for the special low price of only $8.99 for the first year. The offer is available at http://bit.ly/GoDaddyDads.

To learn more about how GoDaddy can help you get online, and to take advantage of this Canadian special offer, visit: godaddy.ca.

GoDaddy today launched Flare, a first-of-its-kind, community-based app that helps bring business ideas to life. Flare empowers people to share ideas and get guidance from friends, fellow entrepreneurs, and experts in a fun and collaborative way, providing an immediate resource to receive feedback and drive new concepts or ideas forward.

New business ideas come from everywhere and everyone, but only a fraction of them go beyond the initial stage to become something bigger. In a recent survey conducted by GoDaddy, 57 per cent of Canadian respondents reported having come up with a concept for a business, product or service, but only 38 per cent actually pursued it. The biggest barriers for not taking action: people didn’t know what to do next (29 per cent) and fear/self-doubt (26 per cent).

Flare also enables people to give back to the community by becoming advisors. It gives people the opportunity to share their knowledge in a given field or discipline with others seeking advice. By supporting a concept, advisors can play an active role during its developmental journey. Followers can also pledge to be a future customer, providing a valuable signal to the entrepreneur about demand and marketability of his or her new product or service.

Flare Features: 

• A simple, easy-to-use, elegant interface reminiscent of popular social media feeds
• Quickly give feedback by swiping left/right to dismiss or be reminded of an idea if it becomes popular
• Tap on an idea to learn more. Love an idea to follow its progress and shape its direction
• Spread ideas by easily sharing them via social media
• Explore ideas that are nearby
• Quickly poll your followers for directional feedback regarding pricing, desirability, feasibility, among other things
• See all of your followers, across all ideas, and their expertise
• Gauge interest of your followers in being future customers via pledging

Flare represents the latest example of GoDaddy’s ongoing commitment to develop innovative technologies and products designed to empower entrepreneurs – whether they’re looking to simply get started with a new idea, get online, or grow a business.

Flare is available immediately in the Apple App Store. It will launch next month on Google Play for Android devices.

To learn how GoDaddy can help your small business, visit: godaddy.ca

Today GoDaddy launched its Professional Web Services in Canada, allowing Canadian small business owners to have a professional looking website built for them at a fraction of a design agency’s cost. Canadian entrepreneurs are often too busy running their businesses to worry about establishing a strong online presence, but a website can be a critical element in growing a small business’ market and sales. GoDaddy’s Professional Web Services enable Canadian SMBs to get online quickly and cost effectively without a big time investment.

Customers can choose from three web design options:

• WordPress Website Design: Utilizing the WordPress platform, these sites are tailored to each business’ unique requirements with an eye toward their specific industry. With up to 10 pages included and built in as little as 10 business days, this product is best suited for SMBs that need a site with advanced functionality.
• Standard Website Design: A professional-looking, informational site with up to eight pages, created in as little as seven business days. These websites grow alongside businesses with six hours of included update time.
• Simple Website Design: Built in as few as seven business days, this single page website is for businesses who need to display basic contact information.

In addition to building websites, GoDaddy PWS offers assistance with SEO and logo design to provide customers with more comprehensive online solutions.

GoDaddy’s new full-service SEO Services offering gives customers a custom, fully managed SEO product that includes ongoing on-site and off-site optimization. To develop an initial SEO strategy, the SEO Services team researches the customer’s website, competitors, and industry in order to determine the best keywords to target. The team then implements specific SEO actions, such as meta-tag optimization and custom blog posts, in order to help search engines see that the site is the most trusted and relevant answer to online searches for those keywords. Optimal first-page ranking typically occurs after six-to- nine months. Customers are able to see exactly what SEO work GoDaddy has completed and track keyword progress through an online dashboard.

GoDaddy’s Logo Design Service helps customers who want a new logo get the design they want. A special application called the Logo Studio acts as a visual questionnaire, helping customers select colours, font styles and graphical elements. Experienced graphic designers take the information from the questionnaire and work directly with customers to produce a compelling, one-of-a-kind logo in only three-to-five business days.

For more information about GoDaddy’s Professional Web Services, please visit: https://ca.godaddy.com/websites/web-design for Web Design Services; https://ca.godaddy.com/online-marketing/seo-services for SEO Services; and https://ca.godaddy.com/websites/logo-design for Logo Design Services.

By Jill Schoolenberg

While small business owners might have been locked away from the cold for the last few months, it’s time for some spring cleaning, getting a fresh start and developing a strong online presence for your company. Failing to be online – no matter the size of your business – carries a high risk of losing customers to competitors.

According to global research commissioned by GoDaddy in 2015, most very small businesses aren’t fully plugged into the Internet, with 59 per cent saying they don’t have their own website. In Canada, very small businesses were exactly in line with the global findings, which was also at 59 per cent without a website. Around 40 per cent of Canadian respondents said they thought their company was too small for a website — but they also understood that they placed themselves at a competitive disadvantage by not having one. The remaining 60 per cent of people without a website were split fairly evenly across thinking it was too time consuming, too expensive or too technical.

So why do some entrepreneurs get cold feet about promoting their trade online?

Perhaps some assume that launching a website requires them to possess great technical knowledge. Or perhaps there are too many other things to think about — like managing the day-to-day business tasks — and as a result, a website gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.

However, with inexpensive and simple tools available, getting your business online doesn’t need to take a lot of time, or require lots of tech expertise.

So where should you begin?

What’s in a name?

Thanks to the availability of hundreds of domain name extensions (such as .COM, .CA and .BIZ) and an array of easy-to-use tools to launch a website, it’s possible to give your business a distinct and customizable identity online. Today the choices are endless, so the first step is to really think about how you want your business to be perceived in the long-term and begin your domain selection.

For example, opting for the geographically descriptive .CA puts your business on the map, no matter where you are based, while .PHOTOGRAPHY sets expectations about what you provide. Small businesses generally don’t need to buy hundreds of domain names across their brands to help protect themselves. However, you may want to think about which domain names you would not want your closest competitor to have, and register those. A small investment of five to seven domain names could be sufficient to help ensure your core brand territory is covered.

Open for business

The next step is to create your website. Think of it as a shop window with an ‘open all hours’ sign on the front. Customers can visit whenever they want, so it’s vital they are greeted with a great user experience.

It’s important to design your website as if you were the customer. Remember, when looking for a new service, they want to find the right information as quickly as possible. Details such as your location, operating hours and contact information should all be featured prominently.

Keep your website simple to navigate by avoiding clutter. Cutting down on unnecessary information ensures that visitors can explore without getting lost.

Technology has evolved to give us more flexibility in how and where we work and interact, proven by the fact that mobile now exceeds PC Internet usage. It’s therefore certainly worth taking this into account when designing your website. We all know how frustrating it is when browsing a website that isn’t mobile-friendly; keep each page of the site consistent to ensure a feeling of continuity as users scroll through on their phones.

Services such as GoDaddy continually work to support the website-building process, with a team of technical experts at your disposal to answer questions you may have along the way.

Launching your online presence can come in the form of affordable, introductory packages (which can cost less per month than an ice cream cone) or free trials of specific products to help you fully understand and meet your needs. This gives small businesses the same opportunity to be as heavily present online as larger corporations.

Ultimately, being online can be a simple way of generating business. Your business – however big or small – should not be hidden from the world. Opportunities arise from people seeking a service; if they can’t find you, they won’t engage with you. Getting your business online can turn cold leads warm.

You work too hard for your business to be invisible.

Jill Schoolenberg is the Vice President of GoDaddy Canada, the world’s largest technology provider dedicated to small businesses. For more tips and information, visit www.GoDaddy.ca and GoDaddy Garage.

By Jill Schoolenberg, GoDaddy Canada

We may be in the dregs of winter, but spring will be upon us before we know it. Now is the best time to give your website the boost it needs with a design and content makeover.

Even if web design isn’t your area of expertise, you can still create an amazing website. Solid design will always outdo flashy or gimmicky pages. By following a few easy tips and building a solid foundation you can’t go wrong.

Before you even begin working, look at what you already have. Ask yourself if your current setup communicates your brand effectively. Maybe your site only needs a fresh coat of paint, or maybe you would like a major renovation. Winter might be a terrible time for renovating your house, but it’s the perfect time to get down to business with your website.

Remember, you don’t have to tackle it all at once and if a full website makeover isn’t in the cards you might pick one small piece to focus on, such as improving your direct marketing or driving more traffic with SEO.

Let’s look at some of the best ways to improve your website in 2016.

1. Trends are your friend

Just like any industry, web design goes through phases. Before you embark on any changes be sure to browse around other sites in your field and read-up on what’s hot to get some inspiration – then make it your own!

2. Set realistic goals

If your goal is to get a simple website up and running, you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you can go live. If you’re starting a more detailed project or looking to improve specific aspects of your business online (maybe you want to start a business blog), remember to set reachable goals so you’re not immediately overwhelmed.

3. Domains (and TDLs) are fun!

The perfect domain name might not be the most obvious. New top-level domains (TDLs) are being created all the time, and now is a great time to get a domain name that will truly set your business apart from others. Consider a unique domain name that really gets to the heart of your services with TDLs such as .expert, .guru, .studio (even .ninja!). It’s a memorable and fun way to add style to your site.

4. Don’t forget security

When you purchase a domain name, add extra security with ID protection to help keep your contact information hidden. If you’re running an online shop, SSL certificates are essential for helping to keep your customer data secure.

5. Make sure your business and contact information is up to date

This one is easy to overlook when registering a new domain name, or updating contact information for existing ones. Don’t forget to use a current email address so you can receive reminders about renewals. And make sure renewal notifications are coming to you, and not another employee, in case that person leaves your organization.

6. Find a good web host

Do your research and find a host that can scale as your business, and website, grows. Check that they offer all the tools like email, analytics and content marketing that you may want in the future. Maybe most importantly, check if they have 24/7 customer support.

7. Focus on navigation

Once you’re ready to get down to actually designing your site, one key is to focus on easy navigation. Even if you’re building a one-page website, plan for growth. Homepage layout is important as it is the first thing your visitors see. Whatever your design – keep navigation clear.

8. Pick a consistent colour palette and stick to it

Whether you’re going with your existing business colours or picking something completely new, moderation is the key. Luckily, there are a number of online tools to help all the burgeoning designers out there.

9. Get creative with images

Chances are your smartphone has a powerful camera. Use it to take some bright, exciting photos for your website. Original photography is often the best way to go, but if you’re not into taking pictures, you can get creative with some fantasticonline resources.

10. Write a brilliant call-to-action

Photos are great but you’ll need to keep your customers engaged with your website copy. Use an active voice when writing and explain to your customers what’s in it for them. For example, if you plan to offer a newsletter with exclusive offers, say so instead of asking them to fill out another boring form.

11. Build for mobile first

Even if you don’t have a smartphone or tablet, building your website with mobile in mind is essential. Google even uses it as a way of ranking its search results. Building for mobile sounds scary but many tools, including the GoDaddy Website Builder, make it easy.

12. Do analytics

Web stats used to be scary, with a lot of vague terms like “hits.” Today it has never been easier to get into analytics and see what kind of traffic your website is generating. Pick a few key stats to focus on at first like time-on-site and look for ways to improve.

13. Love social media – on your terms

Social can be stressful but it can be an important driver of new business. Take it slow and identify areas where you can improve. You don’t have to be on every social network, it’s far more important to find a niche and grow your audience, if you can, drop the networks where you’ve been slacking.

14. Go global

If you’re building a new website, it’s the perfect time to think about adding localization (language) options. Even if you have the slightest idea you’ll be expanding your business into new countries or would like to attract more international customers, it’s always easiest to start localization from the ground-up. Retrofitting an existing website gets much more complex.

15. Save yourself time

If you’ve got some downtime now, put aside a few hours each week to work on new content you can post during your busy seasons. You’ll thank yourself later!

16. Stick to the plan

If you’re not a full-time web designer, it can be easy to get off-track. If you need inspiration be sure to check out some examples of well-designed websites and browse some of the excellent online resources like the GoDaddy Garage for plenty more tips for both beginners and pros alike.

Jill Schoolenberg is the Vice President in Canada for GoDaddy. Based in Toronto, Jill is leading GoDaddy’s expansion across Canada.  Jill has an extensive business background with leading technology and small business organizations in Canada.