Category Archives: Website Design

An upcoming change to the Google “Chrome” browser that will label all websites that are not using SSL for encryption of the site as “Not Secure”.  This change will take effect in July of 2018.

If you would like to avoid having your site labeled as “Not Secure” in the Google browser (which is currently used by approximately 60% of all desktop computer users, and abo​ut 50% of all users including mobile), then you will need an SSL certificate.

The process to add an SSL to your site and ensure all traffic is routed securely using that SSL is as follows:

1. Purchase SSL certificate (including generating the request)
2. Installing the SSL certificate on your hosting server
3. Updating your website code to force all traffic to utilize the SSL certificate

SkylarStudios can carry out this process for you with your approval.  You will only need to approve us to do it, and then approve the SSL certificate issuance via an email approval process.

1. Sign into your Gmail account at Google Analytics
   • Decide whether to use a free account or a Gsuite account.
   • If you put it under a free account, you can always move it later.
2. Choose the type of account
   • When you log in, you will have the option between mobile app or website.
   • Choose website for your account.
3. Enter your account name
   • This will be the profile name for the website.
   • Once you add this, you’ll add in the website url, country, and time zone.
4. Get the tracking ID
   • Click the button that says “Get Tracking ID”.
   • This is what you will put on your website to view traffic data.
5. Verify your website
   • Yoast, All in One SEO, Monster Insights and other plugins can verify this for you. During this process, the plugin will add the tracking code to your website.
   • You can also add in the HTML code manually or upload the HTML file to your website. If you use one of these methods, you will have to add in the tracking code manually.
   • If you have an e-commerce website, use a plugin like WooCommerce Google Analytics Pro to get tracking codes for all of your products.

1. For SEO
   • Google favors sites that are optimized for mobile.
   • It shows that you are an established and authoritative website.
   • Use Google Mobile Friendly to check if your site is mobile friendly.
2. More and more users are finding your website on mobile 
   • When a user comes to your website, they don’t want to pinch and zoom to see your content. This will make them want to leave immediately.
   • Mobile has surpassed desktop. Recent studies say that approximately 51% of traffic is mobile, 44% desktop, and 4% tablet.
   • This will vary greatly depending on the type of website, but it shows how important it is to make your site optimized for mobile.

Beginning in July, Google Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, will start marking ALL websites as insecure if they are not running under HTTPS.

Is your site ready?

SkylarStudios can help you in making your website Google compliant for HTTPS.  Don’t get caught with your site not working correctly.

Contact SkylarStudios at 919.341.4246 for support.

We’ll provide a proven process for getting the green padlock and avoiding the “Not Secure” warnings.

In the last two weeks, over 50,000 WordPress websites have been hacked due to a major security vulnerability that was discovered in the WordPress REST API.

The core team silently fixed the issue and pushed out WordPress 4.7.2 update.

If you haven’t updated your WordPress site, then please do so immediately.

With this vulnerability, anyone on the internet can deface your website without having the login access. YES, it’s that serious!

So go ahead and update your sites to WordPress 4.7.2.