26th Jun 2020 | General Information, Security and Safety, Web Hosting, Websites
These are odd times.
To say the least.
Many people have been furloughed or wondering what to do with their lives. Will they have a job? Are they happy with the job they have?
With so much spare time, many people have taken this as a opportunity to think about their future.
However, money is scarce.
Many people are choosing to PIVOT to new careers, but budgets are tight.
Part of launching a new business is having a website to go with it… but just getting some hosting and an installation of WordPress is only the start. What about SSL certificates, forms for people to request you contact them, a high quality theme… all those cost money. Then there is the hosting… some is just so slow that you will lose customers.
I saw these problems and came up with a solution.
It is a package with everything you need set up. All you do is give us some text and graphics. We will put them up for you and get you going. At that point you have an amazing website package. When we totted it up, if you purchased it yourself the components would cost £450 per year. That would stretch most starter budgets. As we have mass buying power, we offer it all for £247… and it is all properly configured… and backed up… and the software is regularly updated, minimising data risks. Even if you completely ‘break it’… we can have it back to the previous days configuration in under an hour.
So, you have one fewer thing to worry about.
You save money.
You have a full, working website. (Unlike some other providers who give you a ‘reduced functionality’ website.)
How much?
Just £347 (inc VAT!) per year.
Look at what some of our recent clients have done with it.
Your Path . Guru – where Em Melrose will gently help you find Your Path
Ty Llwyd Fach – Socially distanced camping
Perky Wales – Expert counselling from Gwilym Roberts
All of these are on our super-fast hosting.
So, what have you got to lose?
To book yours, go to Pivot Sites – we set it up for tutors, dog groomers and virtual assistants… but so many others are making use of it.
27th Apr 2020 | Consultancy, Defeating spam, Email, General Information, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
Most web hosters won’t admit it, but email from websites is a NIGHTMARE.
It used to be really easy and cheap to set up email to send from a website, for instance when a form is filled in on the website inform the owner of the website.
As it gets more complex, many hosting companies take a set it up and keep fingers crossed approach.
At Cloud Genius, we monitor that even this aspect of your website is working.
In the old days the web server sent out the email.
The problem is that spammers used to use servers to send out millions of spam emails in a day.
So, web hosting companies have gradually clamped down on this.
Even if you do send an email from your web server, the chances are that the recipient will block it… assuming it to be spam.
What is worse, if someone else on your shared hosting is sending out spam all YOUR emails will be treated as spam, too.
Your emails will not be received and you won’t know!
For this reason, we send our webserver emails via the client’s Office 365 account.
This gives them the same reputation as if they came from the client’s normal email. (Google for Business works just as well.)
This process is slightly more complex.
At Cloud Genius, we monitor this connection so that if it starts to fail we get a message via Slack to tell us which of our clients is in difficulty.
Part of our service that puts us above the rest.
7th Jan 2020 | Consultancy, General Information, Salesforce, Websites
I recently heard a great story about a man with a hammer… bear with me as I have a more up-to-date version.
The story starts with a submarine captain. His submarine is broken. This is a big problem. The submarine had a large crew. Every day that he was stuck in dock would cost a lot of money. Not only that, but he had a mission to complete. He was desperate to get going again. He asked around the docks and could not find anyone to fix his craft.
Eventually, his first officer managed to find an old chap with a hammer. The captain was sceptical, but invited the man aboard. He went straight down into the engine room. The man looked at all the pipes, took out his hammer, tapped a pipe and the submarine sprang back into life. The captain was overjoyed. He asked the man to invoice him. The invoice was immediately produced: £2,002.
The captain was staggered and challenged the man.. why so much money? All you did was tap a pipe it only took a few seconds.
The man patiently explained: Cost of tapping the pipe £2. The thirty years learning where to tap the pipe – £2,000.
A client of mine has been trying to integrate their website and their email and their CRM system. So far they have worked their way through 3 volunteers. The volunteers were great people, but they did not have the experience and knowledge necessary. They had not put in the time to build up the certifications, the years building up experience (through mistakes as well as successes). Although the volunteers were committed, they did not have all that experience and all those certifications.
The lack of functionality has cost their organisation dear… possibly thousands in lost donations, wasted time, etc.
When they came to us, we were quickly able to see the issues and get everything working closely together.
Like the man with the hammer we then have to send in our bill. Although it is not free, it will save them thousands. We are not ‘cheap’, but we try to offer great value.
Let us help you!
24th Sep 2018 | General Information, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
In the world of websites, fast is king.
Why?
If it isn’t fast you:
- Lose visitors
- Get down-ranked by Google
- Are tedious to navigate
- Risk losing sales opportunities
So, Cloud Genius is very proud to be able to announce that our top tier of web servers are:
- Super fast – they use SSDs instead of old hard disks
- Use super-fast networking
- Now use the HTTP/2 protocol, which is far faster than the old HTTP protocol
- Have the option of using StackPath content delivery networks for global reach. (Great if you have an international market.)
If you want the very best in website hosting, come to us.
28th Jul 2016 | Consultancy, e-Commerce, General Information, Security and Safety, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
How g
reat would it be if you could take credit card payments directly from you website.
It’s not as if you have an online store, but there are just one or two services that you would like to charge for. You could use PayPal, but their fees are 3.4%.
Stripe is a really good credit card processor. (After all, even billion-dollar businesses like Salesforce use them.)
Their fees are as low as 1.4% + 20p per transaction at the basic level. Much cheaper than PayPal.
The downside is that they require a website that meets the standards of TLS 1.2.
Ours do.
We can set you up with a secure website.
If you use our Safe and Secure website service, we will ensure that it meets the security standards of the future.
(BTW we do full e-Commerce websites, too.)
28th May 2016 | e-Commerce, Security and Safety, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
Did you know that nearly all of the information you send over the internet can be intercepted and viewed?
Think what that means for your financial information, your personal information. Is it being viewed?
To highlight this, Google is going to start marking such websites as ‘UNSAFE’. This means nearly all websites!
How is this going to affect you and your eCommerce website?
Are your customers going to buy from a website marked ‘unsafe’?
I would imagine that it would put off potential customers!!!
There is a solution. It is called a ‘certificate’.
With an electronic certificate and the correct website set-up, all the information between you and your website, or your clients and your website is totally encrypted – safe.
Until recently, such certificates were the realm of banks and large organisations.
Cloud Genius is now able to provide this service to our clients affordably.
We make a few changes to your WordPress website.
We install the certificates.
Manage the renewal of the certificates for you.
Simple! Easy! Safe and Secure! (And saving you lots of money compared to other solutions.)
Installation is just £30. The automatic renewal service is just £5 p.c.m. when paid by direct debit.
When are you going to get your website certified? and safe?
Just call us now.
