Today, having a company website is as crucial as having a phone number. Prospects, candidates, and clients expect companies they are doing business with to have content online about their business. These audiences will want to see your services, and view links to online review sites like Google, in order to see who, they are doing business with. A comprehensive website has some or many of the following elements: secured, easy to navigate, viewable on all mobile devices, keyword searchable SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the ability to add or change your content like, graphics, links, email forms, call me now buttons, call to action buttons to fillable forms is also important, especially if you're a small business.

Most companies today will jump at the first lowest price offered to have a website made for their business. They however fail to research what type of website they are actually paying for. With the free open source community expanding dramatically, there are many free website options on the market, including WordPress. Many companies will flock to use it as it is free, open source, and easy to setup. For beginners, WordPress is the perfect platform for blog's or small websites. However, as projects grow beyond the initial phases, many users start to realize that working with WordPress could be difficult without certain skills. Essentially, you have to be a PHP developer (or hire one) to edit or alter various functional and cosmetic elements of the platform. The hourly rates of a capable and qualified PHP developer, are typically ranged from $61-80/hr on average and takes an average of 6 to 10 hours to put together a basic WordPress website. Many web designers or design firms encourage their clients to use WordPress and pre-made templates.

WordPress is the most popular CMS. A CMS (Content Management System) is the ability to create, edit and publish website content. WordPress now powers approximately almost 75 million websites worldwide. The platform is free. However, unless your tech savvy you need a web designer to put the site together and setup your access to the CMS and web designers charge for their services to set this up. Because many web designers use pre-made templates and WordPress plugins, it's much easier to hack and get access to your website content. Open Source makes it susceptible to attacks and data breaches. Very recently, millions of websites were hit by an attack that resulted in alteration and removal of website content, some even had derogatory content injected on their company pages that would not be appropriate for their customers and clients to see. This was due to security flaws in WordPress and the plug-ins they were using. This was caused with hidden back doors to their WordPress systems. Another breach was due to a former WordPress employee. Reference: (https://www.zdnet.com/article/popular-wordpress-plugin-hacked-by-angry-former-employee/). According to the online article written by WP WhiteSecurity statistics, 40,000+ WordPress websites in Alexa top one million are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Reference: (https://www.wpwhitesecurity.com/statistics-70-percent-wordpress-installations-vulnerable/) in addition for more information on BSM’s WordPress concerns click here. (https://www.brainscanmedia.com/faqs.php?q=3).

At BrainScanMedia.com, Inc. we build secure websites for our customers which allow them to create, edit and publish their own content using our secured and easy to use in-house built as an online accessible CMS Admin Portal. We also offer secure and cost effective website hosting. In reviewing a web design firm, you may want to consider having your website created from the ground up using the following coding options: PHP 7+ (Server Side Hypertext Preprocessor), HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS 3 (Cascading Style Sheets), Bootstrap 4 (Responsive Library For Mobile), jQuery (JavaScript Library), SQLite (Secured Database Files). Look for services that design secured in-house CMS (Content Management System) which is password protected and secured from 3rd party plugin influences. You may want to seek out to have your content stored in SQLite Databases rather than MySQL Servers as SQLite databases are actual database files which are stored inside your website directory making it easier to backup your entire website weekly.

BrainScanMedia has been servicing the staffing and recruiting industry for over 18+ years. In addition we have provided website support and online presences for state, regional, and national associations. Most of BSM’s clients are seeking casually appealing, easy to navigate, mobile friendly, keyword searchable SEO, and the ability to add or change their content like, graphics, links, email forms, and to have their websites secured. As a technology person who services in an industry of very aggressive and vocal members, I thought it would be important to provide the following example that would be relevant.

Sales Recruiters, Inc. (www.salesrecruiters.com) is a 35 year old recruiting firm. SRI evaluates, reviews, and adopts technology when it serves their purposes and increases their online presence and reputation. Three years ago, Sales Recruiters sought out BSM's advice on secured CMS Technology. The manager of SRI has committed and successfully increased the company's unique visitors and organic rankings of his firm's online presence. SRI’s website was on a WordPress platform. Over a two year period, like thousands of other successful, WordPress websites was hacked, compromised, and infected. Success creates interest from hackers. On one occasion, through a back door, the website had malicious coding imbedded into it. The cost of the replier to fix this was almost two thousand dollars. To combat this issue, SRI developed a backup of website pages. Within a year and half, another breach through WordPress allowed hackers to compromise the website. Although the restoration and repair was successful from the backup, it still cost six hundred and fifty dollars. In discussing with SRI management, IT advisor, and marketing agency, BSM was able to create a secure Administrative Portal on a secure web server, which over the last three years has not had a single breach.

Over the last three years, we have been able to provide additional services such as, a login manager plugin which allows SRI team to create secured login accounts with expiration dates to a secured marketing web page that allows SRI to share specifically chosen marketing materials. We designed a password protected file manager plugin for SRI to upload and organize their marketing files. In addition, we also created new products based on SRI’s needs, including a database driven visitor's manager that counts and tracks unique visitors vs. returning visitors to their website. It includes bar charts, and a list of current and past IP addresses in order to track where the visitors are coming from. SRI’s Admin Portal also has a new plugin that allows pre-made sub-websites to be created on the fly with new recruiter information so each recruiter can have their own sub-website to share with clients.

Although not all of our clients are this complex, we offer the ability to help each client individually address their website needs, CMS options, and website hosting requirements. This is the hallmark of BSM. If you would like to further discuss the topic of the beginning of the article, or would like further information on our services, feel free to contact us at the information below.

Thomas J. Allen | Sr. Web Designer / CEO

BrainScanMedia.com, Inc. | A Web Solutions Company

Email: tom@brainscanmedia.com
Phone: 720-263-2432
Website https://www.brainscanmedia.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brainscanmedia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrainScanMedia