Marketing Archives - Nerd Crossing Technology Services

Picture this: You get an email notification about your domain name expiring. You mark it as Read and move on with your day. Two months later, your friend asks you what happened to your website—it’s not working anymore. Turns out, you never acted on that notification. Your website domain name registration expired, and someone else bought it. You just lost your website, your branded email, and access to all accounts that you set up with it. Now what? You don’t own a domain. You rent it. When you purchase a custom URL, you don’t own it indefinitely. You rent it for a set period of time. If you want to keep it, it’s up to you to renew it when the term expires. If you forget, you could find yourself in a world of trouble. Expired domains go to auction and can be bought by anyone. And once they have your branded URL, they could hijack your brand to spoof your business, or even hold the domain name for ransom, forcing you to pay whatever they ask to get it back. This is not a scare tactic or an urban legend. It’s a real-world issue that happens every day, and affects thousands of people and small businesses, costing not just money, but SEO power and brand reputation, too. How to protect yourself Luckily, this is 100% preventable. To protect your business website and related services, follow the steps below: Register your domain with a reliable registrarAlways make sure you’re dealing with a reputable service provider like GoDaddy or our personal go-to,Namecheap, to register your domain. Set up your account, and make sure your information is kept up to date. Register for multiple yearsIf you have an option, always register for as long as you can. This not only reduces maintenance work, but may also save you some money, as longer term registrations offer a per-year discount. Activate autorenewalThe best way to make sure your website URL doesn’t expire is to make it renew automatically. You will still receive a notification of renewal each time but, as long as your payment information is up to date in your account, there is no further action required. Speaking of which… Keep your payment information up to dateIt goes without saying that renewals must be purchased. If your payment information expires or changes and the charge can’t go through, you may still lose your website URL. Make it a habit to go through all of your accounts and update your payment information whenever you change your default payment method or get a new credit card. Read your registrar’s communicationsYour service provider will send you periodic updates via email. Keep an eye out for these, and always read through them to make sure you don’t miss anything. Regularly opening these emails will also help prevent important notices being sent to Spam. Need to spruce up your website? Your website is your online business card and portfolio. It’s the first thing users see when they look you up. Does your website communicate the right message to potential customers? If you need help updating your online image, we’ve got you! Contact us today for a free consultation.

Over the last few years, social media has grown and expanded into an intimidating beast. From Facebook to YouTube to LinkedIn—it’s easy to get overwhelmed trying to stay on top of it all. Here’s a tip: you don’t have to. If you’re struggling to juggle all the platforms at once to maintain brand awareness and advertise your business, here is how you can streamline your social media presence and increase your impact on your audience. Step 1: Prioritize Every platform has its purpose, and not all of them will fit your needs. Your first step is to identify what you want to accomplish, choose the right platform(s) to fit your needs and focus on just that. Social media is all about engagement. In terms of public image, it’s less harmful to have no page at all, than to have a “dead” page you don’t maintain. Which platform is right for you? Step 2: Streamline Maintaining multiple platforms at once can be time-consuming. Luckily, there are several tools that help you bring your social media into one dashboard where you can monitor all of your profiles and schedule posts with ease. Shop around, compare different tools and pricing, and pick the one that fits your needs. Here are a few options you can check out: Step 3: Engage If you’re using social media like a stage with a spotlight, you’re doing it wrong. Social media is all about engagement. The content you post should be tailored to elicit a reaction, whether it’s likes, comments, or reposts. The more people interact with your content, the better your results will be. And it doesn’t stop there. When people do interact, you should respond accordingly. If someone comments, Like or reply to acknowledge them. When they share or repost, offer a Like as well. You should also occasionally go outside your bubble and interact with other pages as well. This helps boost your visibility and engagement. A few tips to make your posts more engaging: Every business should have a website to help generate business. If you don’t have one, or you’d like to improve what you have, we can help! Warning: Pace Yourself! Social media can be an incredible time suck. Once you get into it, it’s difficult to come back out. This can have a negative impact on your productivity and time management. To avoid getting pulled into the black hole of doomscrolling, schedule a dedicated time slot for social media in your day, and stick to it. 15-30 minutes a day should be more than enough to log in, respond to comments, post something new, and log out. Remember: unless you’re an influencer or professional content creator, social media should be a supplement to your business, not its sole focus.