Online marketing by KM Web Design and Solutions offers lots of marketing tips including ebooks, videos, email newsletter sign ups, e-commerce marketing and online business marketing techniques

Black Friday

5 Best Black Friday Deals for marketing your business

5 Best Black Friday Deals with big savings

Black Friday is a good opportunity to buy the software and tools you need to run your marketing campaigns.

Content Marketing is something every business should be investing in with the right tools to create impactful posts and stories.

Upgrade your website or ramp up your marketing activity using these 5 software tools below.

1. Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Clouds offers all the tools you need to start creating beautiful websites and gorgeous social media content.

Edit photos, create wireframes to design websites, create colour pallets, custom lettering and so much more.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a package of lots of useful tools used by Graphic Designers and website designers and includes: Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and more.

The offer today is 39% off and ends at the end of today.

2. Canva

If you have not used Canva yet then start creating content today! What are you waiting for? The platform is free to use for general use creating nice Instagram posts and website content but for those wanting something more eye catching and effective the pro version is really cheap for what you get to do with it i.e. create business cards, create videos, merchandise etc.

Canva's is offering a flat 50% discount today! They are an awesome company and really want everyone using their tools to achieve real success, so they offer lots of training and support.

3. Theme Forest

You can create a website from scratch using Adobe Creative Cloud wireframe functionality or you can pick up a pre-designed website theme that you can use as a base for your next project.

These themes are great for small project purely because they come with lots of additional functionality that wireframes do not.

Themeforest is my go-to for all website themes because of the variety and extension library of work. The developers on here are very supportive with their licenses.

4. Hosting

Green website hosting means powering data centres that store the websites with green renewable energy.

This may not seem a big deal, but I read one statistic that data centres in the USA use more electricity than the whole of the car industry. To tackle climate change the hosting companies should be working hard to tackle this.

Website hosting with KM Web Design and Solutions is £10.00 flat rate for all businesses but today I am offering 50% discount with code Host2611.

Below is a list of features included in websites hosting:

  1. Website will be secure
  2. Website activity and performance will be monitored
  3. Plug-ins will be updated if WordPress
  4. WordPress and themes updated
  5. Website support and assistance

Annual website hosting for just £60.00

5. Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes offer another way to make beautiful and lasting websites for all types of businesses.

Black Friday is the time of year when they offer their biggest discounts. Membership gives you access to lots of great website content.

Highly recommend Divi for those starting out in website design.

Summary - get the best deals

One think a successful business must always do is keep the costs down. This is a mentality that I have always had and has kept me in business for so long. Costs can easily spiral and those costs affect profit margins.

You can not run successful a business without marketing and good marketing needs investment. For small businesses and freelancers this can be expensive.

Black Friday may not be popular but it does offer a lot of benefits to cost savings.

Ringwood Chess Club

Website design for Ringwood Chess Club

Ringwood Chess Club Website Design

Website design for Ringwood Chess Club with private members area and league tables to display members competition result.

The Dorset Chess Club has been a very useful and popular website for Chess Members so I was asked to create a website for Ringwood Chess Club.

League Tables and members area functionality

The website was created with the Wordpress Divi theme to give the organisations a website editor tool they would find easy to edit and update.

The website included a members area for members to converse and the league tables feed so members could see their standings.

The Ringwood Chess Club Website

includes tables for Fixtures and Grading of members.

Recreate this fully functional Ringwood Chess Website for your Club

Using features from this project I can recreate a great Chess Club Website at a very affordable price with integrated Social Media feeds and additional features.

Get a quote for a league table website

Complete the form with the details and we will send a proposal with costings in 24 hours.

Enterprise Nation

10 Email Newsletter designs we love

Marketing Experts recommend Email Newsletter Marketing, here are 10 email newsletters designs. One successful women told me the majority of clients sign up to seminars from the Email Marketing newsletters and that is the best form of marketing.

Sending regular Email Newsletters to your contacts informs them of new services, business achievements, business announcements, industry developments and all of this content links back to the website.

Here are a few of our favourite email newsletters designs showcasing layout, content and branding that make an impact.

1. Guardian Small Business

The Guardian Small Business Email Newsletter is compact, branded, nicely laid out in blocks and sections with thumbnail images linking directly to news articles, competitions with contact details and social media links.

A perfect template for an email newsletter design.

Guardian Email Newsletter

2. CoffeeCup

In contrast to The Guardian Small Business template CoffeeCup have opted for a full page, larger font, call to action buttons and the look and feel of a web page. Nicely branded with social media links.

CoffeeCup Email Newsletter

3. WIBN

The WIBN is a member newsletter packed with information about group achievements and successes during that period.

Everything you need to know about the WIBN for the December/January is contained in this newsletter including images of members.

This newsletter shows just how useful it is to send out regular updates to customer or members to keep them informed, inspired, motivated and recognised.

WIBN Newsletter

4. UK Business Forums

Similar to The Guardian Small Business the UK Business Forums is promoting useful articles for SME's in a compact way with thumbnail images and links.

Nice simple branded design.

Email Newsletter UK Business Forums

5. Cotswold Outdoor

This beautifully branded email newsletter is full of great marketing techniques with lots of links back to the e-commerce website.

Great example of an E-Commerce specific email newsletter.

Cotswold Email Newsletter

6. Shortstack

Good use of white space with one page design.

Nice use of graphics with call to action buttons back to the website.

This newsletter looks like a web page, very modern and eye catching.

Email newsletter shortstack

7. Enterprise Nation

The first thing I notice is that it is addresses to me. Personalised email newsletter gets my attention straight away.

This newsletter even includes a link to a video.

I like the dark background that makes the newsletter stand out more clearly.

No thumbnail images but the main image is eye catching with strong block links back to the website.

Enterprise Nation Newsletter

8. iStock

Similar to Shortstack this email newsletter is full page, white space, nice large images with prominent call to action buttons.

a great example of a modern, simple striking email newsletter design.

emailnewslettersistock

9. Yoast

Created with Mailchimp Yoast email newsletter includes nice graphics, videos, links and in a clean full page design.

Headings and useful text content ensure this email newsletter is very useful to the recipient.

Yoast Newsletters

10. Mozilla

Pale background with nice use of graphics, large font and key points relevant to the user.

The content stands out and is a great example of 'keeping it simple' for optimum effect.

Email Newsletters

Email Newsletter Designs Conclusion

Sending out regular Email Newsletters to your contacts keeps them informed of your services and keeps your business in the forefront of their mind.

It is a good idea to use the newsletter to inform customers of important information such as Industry developments as well as promoting your business services.

The design should be in keeping with your website so ensure the newsletter is nicely branded and contains links back to specific articles or special offers.

E-commerce email newsletters contain more marketing techniques such as images, call to action and graphics.

Contact us if you need help with your email campaign.s

Belgian

Creating a Facebook Flag of Solidarity

Creating a flag of solidarity for Facebook or using our Facebook profiles to showing support for good causes.

The horrors of heterosis attacks shakes the whole world and the bombings in Paris and Belgian were truly frightening

We can show our support for others on social media by updating our profile pics in support of countries and organisations.

When Paris was attacked people across the world took to Facebook to overlay their profiles with the French flag. Today, we overlay our profiles with the Belgian Flag and here is a quick guide to how we do it.

For this quick tip we are using GetPaint.net as its an easy tool to use for editing images but all image editing tools will work in much the same way.

Unlimited Web Hosting - Kualo

Paint.net

  1. Download the Belgian Flag to your pc - find an image on a website (check copyright), right click and select > copy image.
  2. Go to Paint.net - File new > paste.
  3. Resize/crop it to 250px x 250px and save as .png format and close.
  4. Upload your profile image to paint.net.
  5. Resize/crop image to 250px x 250px - .png format.
  6. Layers > import from file > select Belgian Flag
  7. Go to > layers > layer properties > select Lighter from drop down options - move cursor to adjust the opacity level so the profile image is visible.
  8. File > save as > rename this file and save to your pc.
  9. Upload this image to Facebook profile.

This is a quick and simple way to overlay your Facebook Profile with a flag or any other transparent layer.

Social Media is a powerful platform to

 

 

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Facebook Security

21 steps you need to know to keep your Facebook account safe

Here are 21 things you can do to keep your Facebook account safe from hackers and malicious activity.

Facebook is used by millions of us on a daily basis, happily uploading and sharing photographs of loved ones, especially for those living away from family and friends.

Businesses too are encouraged, by Facebook and marketing professionals, to share lots of information about the business and make regular posts to boost brand awareness, so it would be a disaster if your Facebook account was taken over by a malicious hacker intent on stealing your identity and destroying your reputation.

User awareness is the main defence against Facebook hackers so here are a few tips to keep your Facebook account secure.

www.Facebook.com

Firstly, always ensure you are logging into the correct Facebook url. Many hackers set up Fake Facebook urls to obtain your login details.

Passwords

Use a strong password that doesn't include any personal information and don't use this password for anything else, also keep it safe and do not share it. We recommend the password be at least 8 characters and include lower case, upper case, numbers and special characters.

Password Managers

You can use a password manager to store all your passwords in one safe location i.e. Keychain.

Passphrase

Alternatively, you can use a passphrase that will help you remember passwords.

Change passwords regularly

It is good practice to update your passwords regularly to ensure they are not compromised.

Remember password - not recommended

Browsers give users the ability to remember passwords making it easier to login as password will auto complete. This is a handy tool for busy professionals but not recommended if using a shared computer or work computer.

Trusted Computers

Only type your passwords into trusted computers. If you are in an internet cafe in Delhi then just be wary. If you do have to login then change your password immediately after.

Facebook Security Settings

Login Alerts

Select - get notifications - then select your email address.

This will alert you immediately someone has accessed your Facebook account. If a hackers accesses your account change your password immediately.

Login Approvals

Activate login approvals. If someone logins in from a different browser a security code will be sent to the mobile phone for access. This is an additional layer of security.

Trusted Contacts

If you ever get locked out of your Facebook account one of 3 Trusted Contacts could be the ones to get you back in. Select 3 people to be your trusted contacts.

See where you are logged in

This data gives uses information about where the user has logged into the account. Any suspicious activity will be logged in here.

Facebook Privacy Settings

Check the settings in Privacy. Facebook is only for friends to interact so most of the settings will be for friends only. Who can see my stuff should just be 'friends'.

Read Facebook Guide to Privacy

Facebook is changing and evolving all the time so check the Facebook Guide to Privacy for the latest information about protecting your privacy.

Preview my profile

Check how your information is seen by others by clicking the Preview my profile button on the Privacy Settings page to ensure you are not giving anything away.

Only accept people you know as friends

Personal Profiles are sacred to us, they include lots of personal photos, videos and personal information so only accept friend requests from those you know, there are thousands of fake Facebook accounts set up to steal personal information so if you receive a 'Friend Request' from someone who is already a friend then do not accept.

If in doubt, you can always defriend them.

Educate your children to only accept friend requests from those they know. I heard of an incidence where a child accepted a friend request from man from South America, this caused no end of issues.

Change Password immediately

If you suspect someone has commandeered your Facebook Account change the password immediately.

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Report Suspicious activity

If you see spam or suspicious content then please report this to Facebook using this facility. Facebook needs to be notified of hackers and spammers before they damage personal and professional reputations.

Report spam Facebook

Do not click on suspicious links

Click Bait Quizzes

Security experts are seeing a rise in Click Baits being used by Hackers tricking people into downloading malware or stealing personal information.

If you love those quizzes we suggest only using those that do not ask you to sign into your Facebook Account or give your email address.

Sign out

It is good practice to sign out of any system not in use. You can sign out remotely if you do forget.

Have anti-virus software installed on your PC

In the event you do inadvertently click on a malicious link then run your anti-virus software such as MalwareBytes to clear items from your pc.

Make sure your e-mail accounts are secure

Keep browsers up to-date

Browsers are updated regularly by developers adding lots of security features making browsers 'security aware'. Often you will receive a warning before you enter a suspicious website.

Conclusion

Keep up to date with all the latest scams and security best practice to keep safe online.

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