So you are developing an enticing and informative website for your audience. Well, believe it or not, also need to make your website “boring”!

Having a website that does not comply to regulatory standards and fails to manage its users’ data safely and efficiently will lead to a plethora of unwanted issues. These can range from company investigations, consumer mistrust, vulnerability to cyber-attacks and many more. All of which can damage your online perception and reduce the competitiveness of your brand… *cue suspenseful and haunting music*. But do not fear, here are all the details you need to get savvy on the regulatory things every website needs to have!

Cookie Policy

When browsing the web on your computer, phone or tablet, small pieces of data called “Cookies” are stored every time you load a website into your browser. Generally, Cookies are used to remember you and your preferences. This is done through a “session” Cookie for a single visit, or persistent Cookies if you have visited the website multiple times. But since Cookies are the most common form of online data collection, a law has been put in place to regulate them, the Cookie Law. Everyone that has a website needs to comply with this law and if you don’t you may risk enforcement regulations, potentially leading to consumer mistrust in your website as they will believe their privacy is not secure. To comply with the Cookie Law, you need to undergo a “cookie audit”. This will check what types of Cookies your website sets, what they are used for and will also tell your visitors how you use cookies and obtain their consent to Cookies.

GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR) “D-Day” was the 25th of May 2018. This saw new regulations put in place regarding data protection. Businesses will now need to really take control of the data in which they possess in order to demonstrate compliance with the regulation. This means taking on a more active approach to governance and encourages communication with clients and customers in order to obtain consent – which could even lead to new business.

SSL Certificates

SSLs are small data files that create a foundation of trust as they create a secure connection. SSLs have a key pair, a private and public key. These keys work together to establish a secure connection. The certificate also contains a “subject” which is the identity of the website holder. SSLs allow for sensitive information such as card numbers, login details and so on to be transmitted securely. If no SSLs are present, then data between users and servers can be seen in plain text, making information extremely vulnerable to attackers using that data.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is how a website or web page is seen in a web search engine’s results. These results can be either natural, organic or earned. The higher up the search engine a website or web page appears, the more visitors it will generally receive, who may then be converted into customers. SEO can focus on many kinds of search engines, including image search, video searches, academic searches and industry-specific search engines. SEO can be compared to local search engine optimisation, which is normally focused on the optimisation of a web page or web site’s presence so that they are displayed when a user enters a local search for its products or services.

Conversion Optimisation

Conversion optimisation is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a web page that are converted into customers or to take any desired action on a web page. Born out of the “dot-com” bubble. As competition grew on the internet in terms of eCommerce, internet marketers needed to produce measurables to the optimise users’ experience. The use of conversion optimisation accelerated in 2007 with the introduction of Google Website Optimiser.

Page Speed Optimisation

PSO is the process of increasing the speed in which the content on your web page or website loads. Page speed is an important factor that marketers often forget. Page speed can be a direct impact on consumers behaviours, with 79% of customers in a survey stating they would not return to an online shop if they were dissatisfied with the website performance. In order to optimise page speed, you need to implement; good hosting, research themes, optimised images, cache creation.

Word Press Upgrades

Wordpress.com lets you host a WordPress website, or multiple, for free. Back when your website was launched, it was great. However, technology is constantly evolving and you need to keep up to date. In order for your website to carry on working the way you want it to, it requires regular updates and tweaks to maintain the functionality you had at the launch date. The technologies that WordPress and your server environment rely on are always evolving, and if just left, your website will eventually render itself redundant. Upgrading your WordPress, plugins and server environment will maintain its functionality and lead to extra functionality!

Google My Business

Google My Business allows users to take charge of what people can see when searching for their business online. You can build your own website, update your listing and engage with your customers easily. Give everyone that searches for your business a reason to come in through posting updates and offers.

Rich Snippets

Rich snippets is a term used to describe the data mark-up that site operators can add to their existing HTML, which then allows search engine operators to distinguish what content is on each web page. Normally when a homepage is seen on a search engine the URL, site title and various media you have assigned to it will be shown. When rich snippets are employed, more information will be visible such as whether it is a service, person, or product etc.

Now that you have the complete low-down on how to achieve the utmost boring-excellence when developing your website, you must be eager to get going! Be sure to keep all the above in mind and your website will have the secure foundations to project the clear, engaging and trustworthy message you audience needs
Hmm… all this talk of cookies has got me slightly peckish (for the non-data kind of course)…