Better Security and WordPress Hosting

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We were notified shortly after 3AM that brute force attacks and complex access attacks were increasing exponentially on a few of our client sites. With properly protected sites, we only had to go in and block a few (dozen) IP addresses, but with attacks jumping by MILLIONS, we’re happy to have had the protections in place to begin with.  We were able to make quick work of locking down all of our sites and fending off the attacks.

What do YOU do when your WordPress Web site is attacked?

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Time Has Shrunk. Has Attention to Quality as Well?

By on   /   Blog, Design, Print Design, SPOKE News, Technology  
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We made a couple text edits and sent the client a new proof of the mailer. Through the beauty of technology, we watched as they opened the email, clicked on the proof, glanced over the last round of edit requests, and snap – off to press! But something was bothering me. It was negligible, almost like a shadow that I could see out of the corner of my eye but never quite catch. Deadlines. Because of deadlines, I sent the approved art off to press anyway. That was Friday. Today, only a few days later, we’re re-ordering the print run.

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The Most Important Digital Marketing Question You Need to Answer

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Do you want to understand digital marketing, or do you want someone to handle it for you? It’s an important and honest question. It can help you decide where your time is best spent and what’s most important to you. We have clients that know they need digital marketing, but don’t understand what it is, where to use it, and how they’ll find value. It’s important for us to educate our customers on what digital marketing is and how to measure its value. We should note that not every business will use digital marketing the same way, nor will they

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4.5 Tools To Get Digital Marketing Right

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This is the industrial age of digital marketing. What’s hot today will soon be yesterday’s cold fish. It seems like just a short 12 months ago, we were working on Vimeo engagement strategies and backing off email campaigns. And now, well, email is back on the table and Vimeo is no more than a greasy skid mark on your iPhone. Digital is fickle at best. But as new tools and new technologies are developed, the opportunities to build customer connections are better than ever. Digital marketing is still marketing. It’s just a variety of new tools that make it different

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Three Strategic Factors to Successfully Integrating Video Marketing

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Video marketing has become the hottest trend in communications strategies. With the world turning to live streaming and video conferencing during the pandemic, it’s no wonder video has become the smart marketers’ communications tool of choice. Video’s intrinsic entertainment value and increased engagement potential is an audience’s most natural connection to you and your brand outside an actual face-to-face meeting. Now is the best time to kick off that video marketing program. So, how do you get the ball rolling integrating video marketing into your marcom strategy? While you may be a fantastic communicator, quickly adapting to social media, integrating

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Beware The Social Media Spell

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Unfortunately, this is Social Media Marketing for many: Look deeply into my eyes… you are feeling veeeery sleepy… sleeeeepy… deeeeper… deeeeeeeeper… relax and let the social media mystique take you to a happier place. Deeeeper… Dee… Yeah, sometimes I feel like social media has cast some kind of spell over businesses, specifically throughout the marketing departments of some companies. It’s easy to be seduced. It’s easy to be swayed by viral videos, tweets, and blogs with thousands of readers. It’s easy to think that social media can be the magic pill to fix marketing mishaps. But in our passionate pursuit

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Happy GOOGLE Mobile-Friendly Day!

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Mobile-friendly? What, you say? Yes, over night, the powers at Google changed their algorithms for search to require all sties to be “Mobile-friendly” or be excluded from mobile search. You can read more about their changes here: http://cre8wow.me/1yLU6XM This change is a great advantage to you and all of those that keep their sites current with search compatibility best practices. As Google enacts these changes, sites NOT mobile-friendly will no longer be indexed for mobile search results. Yes, you heard right… NON MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITES WILL NOT SHOW UP IN MOBILE SEARCHES AFTER TODAY! While standard desktop search will not be

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Website Security Updates – An Open Letter To Spoke Clients

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Website security is no small part of providing great web development for clients. As a service to our customers, Spoke Communications is constantly striving to protect not only the aesthetic integrity of your Websites, your communications and connectivity, but the data therein. In recent months, the “hacking world” has become very aggressive with attempts on accessing the servers, Content Management Systems (CMS), and data within Websites around the Internet. These attacks have caused immeasurable amounts of damage to websites all over the World, and in turn the ability for companies or individuals to be effectively, efficiently, and economically represented online.

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Interview: Our Communications Future

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Interview: Our Communications Future I’m at “that age” now. I can see into the Communications Future! (for what it’s worth) Yep. My eldest daughter is in college, and I’m THAT parent. The parent that the Coe College freshman communications class turns to for “Industry Insight.” While I’m somewhat honored, It’s really making me feel my age. I’ve spent 25 years in the communications industry, 25 years as a communications “Professional.” HA…  While I would never consider myself an “Expert,” I s’pose I could call myself “Professional” at this stage in the game. 🙂 When I started, back in the early

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The Redesign of Google Maps

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One of the most important things we do at CreateWOWmarketing is “feed the Google.” A process of creating and presenting relevant content that can be found. With every client we work with, we teach them about “feeding the Google”, what it means, why it’s important and how it creates value. Google is the largest search engine in the world, so it makes sense. Keep in mind, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and Google owns YouTube. So what does that mean? If you’re not “feeding the Google”, you are missing out on potential business. With the

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