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I just went through an interesting couple of hours. On top of being a web developer, social media manager, and general many-hatted SEO adventurer, I’m also a freelance illustrator. Anyone who is an illustrator, photographer, or visual artist knows that image quality is really, really important — especially when displaying portfolios and the like. It’s with this in mind when I’m developing for visually creative clients that I keep quality in my thoughts always (as well as compression optimization keeping the page load speed in mind). I ran into something very curious, though. I noticed on my own portfolio website,…

Some of our clients–as well as ourselves!–have received complimentary Google Beacon devices mailed to their business address lately. If you have a Google My Business account, you may receive this device in your mail. If you have received a Google Beacon device and want to activate it, click here to skip to the instructions. What is Google Beacon and What Does it Do? Google Beacon is a new way for customers to find something that they may not normally see. It’s a small device that is either standalone or utilizes another device to work (there are different types of beacons,…

Break Free 603 LLC is an escape room in Amherst, NH. The owner, Keith, did a fantastic job using MobiRise to create a nice starter website with necessary information. We call it a “starter” site, because as you know, in-browser website builders usually aren’t all that great. He did a good job of getting the information out on the web so people could find him and the escape room. With that being said, there were some issues. He wanted us to take over updating the website as he couldn’t commit to constantly updating the website. The problem with this was…

Recently we learned that Instagram is testing out, in select markets, a separate messaging app rather than packaging it directly inside of its app. Most of us remember when Facebook made this move a little while back, taking messages out of their colossal Facebook app and bringing it into its own app — enabling the obnoxious chat heads and frustrating people everywhere. Personally, I am of the belief that we have too many individual areas where you can direct message or private message someone. On any given day, I can receive and respond to messages on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook…

EcoSource LLC, who provides cleaning services to business of all sizes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, became a hasOptimization client in the summer of 2017. When we take on new clients, we often “inherit” sites that can be plagued with problems. Most of the time, sites can easily be modified or “fixed” to bring them up to speed. With EcoSource, we inherited an older WordPress-based site. While it was great that it was WordPress, it hadn’t been updated in roughly five years. That meant it was running a very old version of WordPress. While many issues can sometimes be resolved…

When we take on new clients, often times they hand over DIY projects and websites to us to continue working on. While we are all for taking responsibility into your hands and trying out the DIY route, we often have to explain to our clients why sometimes DIY website builders aren’t the greatest things. Sure, if you need a basic web presence and need a decent easy-to-use and easy-to-make website in a pinch, we applaud your effort of using a web builder online. Still, understanding some of the shortcomings of these website builders can help you make a more informed…

You may have heard a bit about net neutrality recently. The reason for this being that the FCC unveiled a plan yesterday (11/22/2017) to roll back protections put in place in 2015 to preserve net neutrality. Many people understand what this means, and others do not. This is where I’m going to derail: this is different from our usual calm down, internet posts, as calming down is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing. You should be freaking out. Everyone should be freaking out. This is a huge problem, and you should be freaking out That being said,…

Recently, my newsfeed was blowing up with people who were very concerned over news articles stating that Facebook was “moving non-promoted posts from the general news feed”. Rightly so if you were to read a headline like that. If you’re a small business or a business that relies on word-of-mouth or social media to sell things without dumping a ton of money into advertising (say, you’re an artist, for one) this can sound extremely scary. However, as with most things people lose their minds over, I sigh, click on it, read the whole article, then explain to people why the…

One thing we get asked a lot is how to take better photos of things, whether they are items being sold or just people. Even if you aren’t a professional photographer and you have no idea about layout or composition, you can make sure you’re utilizing the features of your high-powered cell phone camera to take some amazing photos. 1. Ditch the flash Using the flash can often wash out anything you’re doing. If you’re taking a picture of a person, it’s going to flatten their skin tone and give them a shiny, oily looking face. It will probably also…

We’re happy to announce an upcoming hasOptimization training on Marketing on Social Media. Who should take it? Anyone who is managing Social Media for their company! This class is great for small business owners, marketing managers at small to medium companies, and even members of the social media team at larger companies. We’ve taught for all sizes of business–past students include the University of Michigan, the CDC, and entrepreneurs just getting launched. Where is it? Online, so anyone can join! The web conference details will be provided to all participants in advance. You’ll just need a computer with an internet…