Chrome pushes websites to HTTPS in July

By Tamera Shaw

On Feb. 8, the Chromium blog announced that Google’s Chrome web browser will mark non-HTTPS web sites as not secure beginning July 2018 to coincide with the release of Chrome 68.

Previously, Google offered search engine ranking boosts if sites migrated to the certificate in an effort to standardize encryption on web sites. According to the Chromium announcement, “For the past several years, we’ve moved toward a more secure web by strongly advocating that sites adopt HTTPS encryption. And within the last year, we’ve also helped users understand that HTTP sites are not secure by gradually marking a larger subset of HTTP pages as ‘not secure.’”

Chrome 68’s release means non-encrypted HTTP sites will be flagged in the URL address bar.

HTTPS is a more secure version of HTTP, the protocol that moves data between browsers and web sites. The additional “S” indicates to users the data being sent is encrypted.

Typically used for online transactions like banking, credit card fields and submission forms,

Google wants to push all sites toward encryption.

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9 Reasons why spending on SEO will be your wisest investment of the year

It’s that time of year again. Companies everywhere are having intense meetings and heated debates about the best ways to spend limited budget dollars for the next fiscal period. If your company is in the midst of such discussions (or soon will be), don’t forget about SEO. Spending on SEO strategies and implementation could be your smartest investment of the year.

Today, customers are more likely to find you online. In fact, studies show that prospects go through more than half of the sales cycle before ever contacting your company representatives. If they don’t like what they find (or can’t find you at all) they will quickly move on to your competition. That makes the SEO function critical and a great value for the money. The top 9 reasons are listed below.

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We live in a digital world, one where your presence on social media is a major factor in finding and connecting with your customers. This is a point of pain for many business owners, especially those who haven’t grown up in the generation of Twitter and Instagram. It can be a challenge, trying to portray something meaningful about your products or services in 140 characters or less, so it’s not surprising when business owners miss the mark.

If you’re struggling to get a handle on social media marketing (SMM), the good news is you’re not alone. Here are some common mistakes that business owners make in attempting to curate a social media presence:

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In some ways, science fiction of the past expected too much of the future. By 2017, we were expected to have flying cars, a robot in every home, or a shopping center on Mars. But we’ve still come a long way in the past 50 years. Who then could have predicted devices for the masses small enough to fit in your pocket yet containing the function of a computer, camera, and phone all at once? Who could have known that by the early 21st century, we would be able to instantly communicate with friends and family across the globe? And, now once again, we’ve discovered something to help us move one step closer to the future: Amy.

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Summer and fall in Louisville are a ripe with opportunities for your small business to get a booth at an outdoor festival or trade show. You may be wondering if this could be a worthwhile benefit to your small business.

Of course, if you ask this question to the expo center, festival, or trade show organizer, you’re going to hear a resounding “Yes!” with lots of impressive numbers to back up how many visitors there will be. That kind of exposure, they’ll argue, is very powerful.

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Congratulations! You’ve built a powerful business, developed a robust website to represent it, and have now decided to add a company blog to your digital marketing strategy.

…So now what?

You’ve learned why blogging matters to your audience, but starting one can be a daunting task. Rather than staring hopelessly at a blank page, try learning a few good blogging habits to boost your confidence. Here are some of the basics we rely on:

Choose topics wisely – The first step in writing a blog is coming up with a topic to write about. With blogs, you have much more freedom to discuss whatever is important to you or your industry than typical traditional marketing. Don’t get stuck thinking about it as a sales piece; this blog will represent you in a much broader sense than that. Would you like to be seen as a thought leader in your field, a friendly neighbor, a trustworthy professional, or maybe all of the above? Choose topics that help you achieve your goals while being useful to current or potential customers.

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