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How to Quickly and Easily Make Your Website GDPR Compliant (And Why You Should Immediately)

Posted: 01 Nov 2019 02:00 PM PDT

Ever since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European Union (EU), every business website needs to inform users about the data that it collects. Severe data breaches at Yahoo, Uber and other companies have brought privacy concerns to the forefront. Making your website GDPR compliant is necessary and helps protect users' data. 

Understanding what the GDPR is all about and how to implement it can feel overwhelming. Let's take a look at what the GDPR act covers and how you can make your site GDPR compliant. 

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR is an EU regulation that protects the online privacy of all EU citizens. It covers how personal data is used and extracted when users visit and interact with a website. This act affects all websites since they are likely to get visitors from the EU region. 

Here are some of the key features of the GDPR act that affects businesses:

  • All websites must explicitly disclose that they are collecting personal data.

  • Businesses must inform individuals about why, how and where they store and process users' data.

  • Users have a right to ask for a portable copy of the data collected from them.

  • They have the right to have their data erased under some circumstances.

  • Businesses with core activities where they collect personal data must have a Data Protection Officer.

  • Businesses must report serious breaches of information within 72 hours.

  • GDPR violators can be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover.

The intent behind the GDPR regulation is to protect people against data breaches. Most WordPress sites or other sites collect information in different ways. If a site uses analytics, WordPress forms, optin forms or email marketing, then it is collecting personal information.

Your biggest concern as a website owner is to gain consent from site visitors. According to the GDPR, you have to get explicit consent from EU citizens to collect and process their personal information. Without consent, you cannot share this data with your advertising and remarketing accounts. 

Before you begin:

  • Get expert legal help: When it comes to legal matters, you should always get professional advice. It's a good idea to consult with a lawyer who is well versed in the GDPR. They can guide you to correctly comply with the act.

  • Review all data collection points on your website: Make a list of the different data collection points on your website. This includes your checkout page, a registration page, IP addresses, analytics accounts and others. You're also storing user information if you're working on membership site platforms. It's important to cover all these areas to get consent to collect information.

How to make your website GDPR compliant 

There's good news for WordPress users. WordPress now has GDPR compliant features as part of its core. To begin making your WordPress site more GDPR compliant, here's what you do:

Update to WordPress version 4.9.6 or higher

WordPress 4.9.6 and the later versions have a number of built-in privacy settings. By updating your WordPress core software, you're on the way to successful GDPR compliance.

Let's look at the new key features of WordPress that adhere to GDPR policy. They include explicit consent in comments, new data export and erase features and a policy generator.

Explicit consent in WordPress comments

In older versions, WordPress automatically stored people's names and details when filling in comments. This ensured that people did not have to retype their information when making a new comment. 

Now, WordPress includes a checkbox that people have to manually check. Doing so means that their names and emails are remembered and they don't have to retype them.

New data export and erase features

WordPress has added two items under Tools in your WordPress dashboard: Export Personal Data and Erase Personal Data.

You can use these to easily export a user's information into a .zip file or completely erase them from your database if they request it. These features support you in managing users' personal data more easily and automatically.

Policy generator

WordPress has also created a pre-made privacy policy template. This allows you to create a page that informs visitors about what data you store and how you handle it.

You can find the policy generator by going to Settings and Privacy on your dashboard. If you already have a privacy policy page then you can set that under Change your Privacy Policy page.

You can also choose Create New Page. This will create a new page with pre-made content for disclosures and privacy information. There are also helpful headings and suggestions. You will have to create content for these sections.

With these major features in place, WordPress makes it easy for you to take a step towards GDPR compliance. Now, let's look at some other things you need to take care of. 

Additional steps to make your site GDPR compliant

It isn't possible to cover everything you need to know to make your website 100% GDPR compliant. You will need to get legal advice to do so. However, here are some important aspects of your website that you can look after. This will make your website conform to the Act more closely. 

HTTPS

It is generally a good idea to encrypt traffic to your website. Do this by using HTTPS for your website. There are many benefits to moving to HTTPS. It also gives visitors to your site a feeling of security and trust. 

Contact forms

Users need to be aware that your site will collect their data when they use your contact form. This is the case with any other form on your site such as a registration form or opt-in form.

Create a tick box so that users can click on it to confirm that they accept your terms of service when they click submit. You have to add another tick box so that users know that you will send them further marketing communication. The tick box must not be checked beforehand. Users need to click on it to give explicit consent. Fortunately, popular contact forms like WPForms, Ninja Forms and Contact Form 7 make it easy to add these tick boxes. 

Add a cookie notice

It's necessary to notify users on your site that your website collects cookies. You can do this by creating an overlay with a cookie notification plugin. Some plugins you can use are Cookie Notice and Cookie Consent.

Notifications for policy updates or data breach

Have a system in place to inform users about policy updates and data breaches. You can use an email blast to update users about policy changes. Another helpful way is to use a GDPR compliance plugin to create notifications for you. 

Analytics, tracking and remarketing

This refers to any third-party service or plugin you use that collects data. This includes Google Analytics, Google Adwords, remarketing services and eCommerce Analytics.

To manage this you need to anonymize the data before storage and processing. Doing so can be complicated if you've manually added Google Analytics to your site. However, you can use a tool or a plugin that automatically connects Google Analytics to your site. Choose one that has GDPR compliance options and can make data anonymization easy. 

WooCommerce 

If you're using WooCommerce for your online stores, then you can use its built-in tool to manage user privacy. You can go to Settings and Accounts and Privacy. Enable the options for personal data retention. Also, enable options for erasure and privacy policy. 

Add the necessary information and disclosure to your WooCommerce privacy policy. It is helpful to add information especially related to shopping and payment security. 

Implementing GDPR creates a good impression in visitors' minds. 88% of consumers who are ready to share personal information want transparency about how businesses use their information. Adding GDPR policies helps you and your business more than it inconveniences it. 

GDPR compliance benefits individuals and businesses

Although the GDPR act may seem intimidating, it is actually beneficial to everybody. It aims to prevent future data breaches and protects people and businesses.

It ensures that people's personal information is not misused. Companies are more vigilant about how they collect and manage data. It also creates more trust in those businesses that do comply with the GDPR act. You can take several steps right away to inform users about how you collect and use data. You'll be able to implement the GDPR requirements by following the suggestions here and engaging with your users.

How to Manage Digital Marketing for Small Business

Posted: 01 Nov 2019 11:00 AM PDT

Digital marketing is the practice of reaching out to potential and current customers online. It includes all marketing efforts that are used to reach these people, including social media, email, Google ads, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), blogs, online brochures, videos and connecting with other websites.

Let's break this down to make it a bit easier to understand.

Why digital marketing matters to small businesses

Small businesses can thrive using digital marketing.Competition among small businesses is fierce. Your need to stay in front of people and stand out from your competitors. Digital marketing can help you do just that.

Let's face it. People are online all the time. When you're marketing to someone, you need to find them where they are. When people look for a business, where do they look? For many people, Google is stop number one. How easy is it to find you there?

Basic digital marketing is relatively inexpensive. For just a few dollars you can create a Facebook ad or Google ad and reach many people in and around your community. That few dollars can go a long way toward your company's success.

Where to start your digital marketing

When you're trying digital marketing for the first time, it can seem scary, intimidating and even confusing. What am I doing? How do I know I'm reaching the right people? What do I do first?

Here's the good news. Basic digital marketing isn't rocket science. With a little guidance and patience, you can learn the best marketing tactics for businesses and how to experiment the right way. Here are just a few tactics that work well for small businesses. These can get your digital marketing campaign up and running in no time, giving you positive results with little hassle.

Find and Use Keywords in Everything

Keywords are words that describe your business. For example, if you're a plumber, keywords might be "plumber," "clogged pipe," and "leaky faucet." The keywords are the words that a person uses in search engines (like Google or Bing) when looking for your services.

Take some time with a keyword planner, like Google Keyword Planner. Find the best words for your business, make a list and keep it nearby. Every time you do any digital marketing, use some of those keywords. When you write a blog, use the keywords within the text. If you make a video, use the keywords. If you update your website, use the keywords.

Don't overuse your keywords. Google will notice that. Use them naturally and only as much as you need to, but do use them and use them often.

This is the single most important piece of any digital marketing campaign. If you don't put keywords into your marketing, no one will find you and that defeats the purpose of marketing.

Start a blog

Create informational, helpful content and publish it on your website and Facebook page. Content you share should make you look like an industry expert, giving you the upper hand. You always want to appear more knowledgeable and in control than your competitors. With solid, helpful content, your followers learn to trust you and they share that trust with their friends and family. Your brand becomes more than just a "store," and that transfers into loyal customers and more sales.

So what type of content engages people and causes them to share?

  • Content that tells a story your customers can relate to and understand

  • Content that brings out emotions, whether people laugh or cry

  • Content that brings real value to your customers, like how-tos

Google prefers in-depth content and has let people know longer blog posts, between 1,500 and 2,000 words, are rewarded. But it has to be quality content in that 2,000 words. If you don't have 2,000 words to write that people will want to read, keep it shorter and high quality.

Use social media organically

Social media plays an important role in most people's personal lives. As such, it stands to reason it should also play an important role in your business. It's an easy way to expand your reach, it's a fantastic customer service tool and it's extremely inexpensive or completely free.

Practically everyone is on social media. When your business is not on social media, your potential customers immediately find you irrelevant. If they find your competitors on social media, they'll be likely to turn to them instead of you as the go-to source for their needs.

The key to social media is consistency. Find where your audience is hanging out, then share your content with them, be a part of their lives, offer information, be helpful and occasionally advertise. Sharing content will get you organic growth and create a long-term relationship with your followers. When your followers engage with your content, their friends see your content and your network grows.

Organic social media can seem like such a drop in the bucket, but it has big payback potential if you're consistently working to share content and engage with your audience.

Here are a few things to consider when creating your social media channels:

  • Choose the social media sites your potential customers are using. Pick one or two channels and focus on them. You don't need to be on every single social media channel that exists.

  • Take advantage of the behind the scenes analytics. Major social media channels like Facebook and Twitter show you data as to how your posts are doing and how your page is doing. If you find something that works well, repurpose and reuse it. Don't reinvent the wheel.

  • Find key influencers in your industry and engage with them. Eventually, people with a larger social media presence will start to share your content. But before that happens, you may need to do some relationship building. While you are waiting for them to "friend" or "follow" you, share their content.

  • Use a social media tool to schedule your posts. Try Hootsuite, Buffer, or SocialOomph. Some of them have free versions. Block off some time to get your social media posts together for the week, and then use one of these tools to schedule the posts. It looks like you are posting all week long, but the work is all done at once so you can focus on other things, like running your business.

Make and share a video

Video has recently become a driving force in digital marketing. As much as we shy away from talking to people, turning to the internet to shop and for customer service support, people still like to know who they are dealing with on the other end.

Video is a perfect way to share your company with people. A branded video delivers information, increases conversions and builds trust with your audience. It's more interesting than reading text. It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate.

Here's how to get started:

  • Get familiar with your smartphone camera. Most smartphone cameras are good enough as a first camera for filming marketing videos.

  • Buy an inexpensive lapel mic.

  • If you're brand new to video, check out some video making tips and keep things simple

Optimize your website

As a small business, you need to figure out how to reach the most prospects so you can turn them into customers. This means your customers need to be able to look at your website both on a computer and on a mobile device.

Delivering a fantastic customer experience on a desktop ensures your prospect stays on the site, looks around and takes the action you want them to take. Your website needs to be user-friendly in order to connect to your audience.

Mobile sites must be quick and efficient in every possible way. When people are on the go and looking at your site, they need immediate access and ease of use. They need to be able to find exactly what they are looking for without any confusion.

With both your mobile website and your desktop site, it's not only about the design of the site, but it's also about the experience, the ease of use and the speed of the site. The design is only a small piece of the big picture.

While taking the time to check your website, go through page by page. Are your keywords in the content? If not, now might be a good time to update your content.

Here are a few tips to help you with your website SEO:

  • Set up a Google Search Console account. Register your domain name and follow the steps they have outlined. Google will give you tips on what needs to be addressed on your site.

  • When creating your website content, remember to fill in the page title, metadata and all the other information Google asks for. If you have images on your website, add descriptions to your images. Googles bots cannot read pictures, just words.

  • Use key phrases, not just keywords. Each page on your site should have a specific topic with related keywords and phrases. Be sure not to overuse the words though, as Google can penalize you for stuffing your pages. Keep it natural.

Build and utilize an email list

Email list building often gets overlooked by small businesses even though any experienced marketer will send you down this road first. A responsive email list will be your most valuable marketing asset, even more beneficial than your social media channels.

Email lists drive repeat sales, allow you to build solid relationships with your customers and potential customers, and keep you connected with your customers. They allow you to target your audience with specialized offers and give value to the people on the other end.

As outdated as email may seem compared to social media marketing, it's still one of the most successful marketing tools in the playbook. Marketing experts use this channel across the board. It's been proven to work. In fact, the conversion rate (that's the number of people who do what you're asking them to do) for emails is 3 times bigger than for social media campaigns.

Here's how you can get started with email marketing:

  • Use the 'contact us' form on your website to start collecting email addresses. Send a monthly newsletter. As with any other form of marketing, give your customers valuable information in an easy-to-read format.

  • Send emails to let customers and prospects know about any sales, offers or specials. When you do this, always include an end date. Think about a coupon at a grocery store. It's only good this week so you go to the grocery store and buy that item and $100 worth of other items that you didn't need. If you have a special that ends "Friday," people will come to check it out.

Digital marketing is a key brand-building tool

Digital marketing doesn't have to be difficult. Remember, it isn't always about the sale. Digital marketing is about building a relationship with your audience and becoming their go-to for what they need in your industry. The sales will follow because they trust you.

Once a customer trusts you, they'll come back. And they'll send their family and friends to you, too. Keep your marketing simple. Keep it personal. And keep it real. People want real, solid information; they don't want to get the runaround.

Start with small steps. Get comfortable with one thing before moving on to the next form of marketing. Marketing takes time but if you spend the time, the rewards can be great and the ROI will be much more than what you expected.

How to Maintain Data Privacy During Software Development

Posted: 01 Nov 2019 09:00 AM PDT

Data privacy continues to be one of the most important considerations for global business executives and customers alike. In fact, research has found that cybersecurity is the number one external concern for American CEOs in 2019 and 2020. 

Many of the world's largest companies are responding to the data privacy crisis by investing millions of dollars to build internal cybersecurity teams. These same firms are also collaborating with South American software development firms to source hard-to-find privacy experts at a time when the demand for these specialists greatly outpaces supply. 

Companies can improve their internal cybersecurity efforts and stay ahead of hackers by following appropriate data privacy regulations. In addition, it is important to follow appropriate security models to ensure that development conforms with industry security standards.

The best businesses will also prioritize cybersecurity by building multidisciplinary development teams that integrate data privacy concerns into every stage of the software development lifecycle. 

Why is data privacy important?

As mentioned above, data privacy is the number one challenge faced by American CEOs. The reason for this concern is clear – the number of data breaches continues to increase in both number and sophistication every year. Research has found that hackers attempt to break into a new computer every 39 seconds on average.

The increase in attacks is taking a financial toll on businesses as well. Studies predict that the total costs of cyberattacks will cost global businesses more than $6 trillion by 2021. 

Individual businesses have even more to worry about. New research has found that a data breach costs companies an average of $3.86 million in financial damage. That's from a combination of lost business, a damaged brand, investigations and regulatory costs. Companies can expect the cost of a successful cyberattack to increase as new legislation in the U.S. takes effect. 

This incredible onslaught of attacks means that businesses must prioritize and update their information security efforts now. The first step in the process is to become aware of relevant national and local regulations. 

Follow regulations

One of the most consequential trends in cybersecurity is the rise in national and local regulations detailing how companies must prioritize data privacy.

The most important set of data privacy regulations, by far, is the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) drafted by the European Union. The GDPR was passed in 2016 and went into effect in Spring 2018. 

These regulations protect the data privacy of all citizens in the EU. That means that every company that does business with citizens of the EU must abide by these regulations in their interactions, regardless of where the company is located.

The GDPR requires all companies to ask for consent from customers before they process data. In addition, they are required to collect and store that data anonymously – and must inform consumers if their data has been potentially compromised in a breach.

Finally, large companies are required to appoint a dedicated data privacy protection officer who is tasked with overseeing the company's cybersecurity strategy and responding to customers if a cyberattack is successful.

Unfortunately, the United States federal government has yet to pass comprehensive data privacy legislation. However, several states have created their own laws dictating how data must be handled. This includes Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Washington.

The most important of these state bills, however, came from California. Because California is the most populated state in the U.S., with 40 million residents, state legislation tends to be adopted by most American companies so they don't exclude the nation's biggest market.

California recently passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which goes into effect on January 1, 2020. The bill allows customers to demand that companies disclose information about their personal data.

In addition, the CCPA requires businesses to provide the following data when queried by a customer. Companies must tell their customers which types of personal information they possess, the specific data collected within the past twelve months, and allow customers to request that personal information not be shared with third parties. 

Finally, consumers may request that all personal data be deleted – a directive the businesses must legally follow. 

While the different national and local legislations can make data privacy compliance difficult, it is extremely important to make sure that all relevant regulations are followed when designing software. That's a major reason why so many large companies are scrambling to source experienced cybersecurity experts, and are turning to software outsourcing services in South America and other regions of the world for support. 

Select the right security model

Before launching a software development project, it's important to select the right security model for it. This data privacy strategy will determine whether software meets industry information security standards and allow companies to release software to the public with confidence. 

Most companies can select whatever model fits best with their development capabilities, but businesses that store sensitive information – like finance, healthcare and educational institutes – should select a security-focused model like the Trusted Software Methodology. Executives who are unsure which security model is best suited for their project should turn to a trusted consultant for professional support. 

Trusted Software Methodology

The Trusted Software Methodology is the go-to security model for companies that deal with sensitive consumer information. The United States government created this set of guidelines in the 1990s as a way to counter increasingly sophisticated hackers. 

It uses 25 unique "trust principles" to determine what trust ranking a particular website or piece of software should be assigned. Within this framework, high trust represents websites with poor security components that leave users vulnerable to breaches – an assignment that will trigger additional security requirements from the website. On the other hand, a low trust level means that the website is relatively safe and secure.

This particular approach is most often used by federal and local governments, financial services, healthcare companies, educational institutes and other organizations that possess extremely sensitive personal data. 

Systems Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model

The Systems Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model (SSE-CCM) is a set of rigorous security standards designed to allow companies to easily assess their current information security efforts. This useful benchmark makes it easy for companies to update their procedures and continually improve their processes.

This security model assesses 22 different process areas that are important for information security. Managers can quickly see how their current procedures stack up and determine the effectiveness of proposed changes before they are implemented.

Experienced project managers and organizations with an information security executive are the best candidates for this model. That's because it requires previous know-how and strong institutional support in order to be effective. 

Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Security Development Lifecycle

The Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Security Development Lifecycle continues to be the gold standard security model for most industries. That's because the approach successfully integrates data privacy concerns into every stage of the software development lifecycle.

When the security methodology was released in 2002, Bill Gates explained that software security needed to be continually refined and improved to meet ever-evolving threats. 

Microsoft's security framework prescribes a set of security standards that can be integrated into any project, no matter the scope or level of complexity. These standards include avoiding vulnerable default settings, running components with the fewest possible permissions, and creating a secure software architecture.

Fortune 500 companies such as Adobe and Cisco use this framework as their corporate standard because of its versatility, strong security protections and ease of use. 

Build multidisciplinary development teams

In terms of personnel, the most important step that management can take to ensure proper data privacy is to build a multidisciplinary development team from the outset. 

These teams, which are made up of a variety of specialists, have recently gained favor because they integrate important considerations, such as data privacy, user design and quality assurance, into every step of the software development lifecycle. 

They typically include software security experts, user experience and user interface specialists, and both manual testers and a software developer engineer in the testing. 

By assembling this type of superpowered team from the beginning, managers will ensure a better final product. That's because these teams are constantly checking for and correcting coding errors. In addition, security experts help project managers select the right security methodology and test for data privacy while the basic framework is still being designed. 

In summary

Executives intent on growing their business, maintaining a strong reputation and avoiding legal trouble must take information security seriously. That's because the number and sophistication of cyberattacks only continue to increase and show no signs of abating. 

Most importantly, businesses have to adjust to the new regulatory environment. New laws in Europe and throughout the United States require new security standards and data privacy regulations that companies are struggling to adapt to. The shortage of security experts in the United States makes this difficult, which is why so many firms are turning to South American outsourcing as a solution.

Companies can integrate data privacy concerns into their development projects by selecting the appropriate security methodology and by building a multidisciplinary team capable of integrating those security concerns into every stage of the process.

4 Things to Consider While Choosing a Website Template Design

Posted: 01 Nov 2019 05:00 AM PDT

In today's world of website templates and platforms offering custom web design services, business owners no longer have to know how to code to make beautiful sites from scratch. 

Of course, the sheer variety of website templates to choose from also introduces another problem: which template should you choose? When you don't have design chops to begin with (which is by no means strange,) how do you get a website template that matches your brand, your product and your desired functionality? 

The good news is that choosing a website business plan template doesn't have to be about gut feeling or because it "looks good." There are logical reasons to choose one design over the other, which will save you from drowning in a sea of seemingly endless options.  

Below are four things to consider when choosing templates for your website. 

1. Understand what kind of business plan template you're creating

First things first: what kind of business plan template do you want to build for your website? This may seem like a given, but many people make the mistake of focusing solely on the creative aspect of choosing a website template instead of first being clear on the type of site they want to build. With so many beautiful themes and templates out there, it's easy to fall into the trap of choosing a sexy theme rather than accept a practical template that's appropriate for your site.  

Remember, it doesn't make sense to build a site without first knowing if it matches your needs and those of your customers. Every website has particular distinctions, depending on things like which industry you are in, your business objectives, the content your website will host and your target audience.

For example, if you want to sell retail goods on your site, you would fall into the e-commerce category. This means that a personal blog template will not work for your site, no matter how pleasing or simple the template or theme may look. On the other hand, if you want your website to act as your online portfolio, a personal blog theme would make much more sense. 

Bottom line? Think long and hard about the features of your website before you start building it. What do you intend to do on your site? Who is it for? What kind of experience do you want your audience to have on your site? Answering these questions will make the process of choosing a proper website template much more straightforward.  

With the Yondo all-in-one eCommerce solution, there are custom business plan templates for each industry or the option to have a custom website built specifically for your business.

2. Don't skimp on quality 

Free website templates aren't necessarily wrong, but they're not for everyone either. Sure, if you're a solo-preneur with a tight budget and even tighter margins, you probably don't have any say on the matter – a free template is your only option.  

The downside to a free template, however, is that if you don't go out of your way to use all of the template's options for customization, your site could look very similar to dozens of other sites out there using the same free template. That's not exactly the effect you want your brand to have on your audience.  

Remember, it's not just about money. You are also investing your time and effort into building a great site. It's more efficient to use that time and energy to improve your product instead of working on your website. A paid, off-the-shelf theme or template might be the more practical choice. These templates may be more expensive. However, they come in enough varieties to be customized to your needs out of the box.  

Apart from quality issues, another disadvantage of free templates is the lack of technical support. Some themes and website template platforms may have a healthy community supporting it. However, if you don't have the time to go through questions and instructions, free templates are probably not for you. In contrast, paid templates usually come with customer support and are backed by expert developers. With Yondo's Turnkey package, you can have a website customized to your exact specifications. 

The issue of free vs. paid website templates is a tough one. This is mainly because there is no one-size-fits-all method for building a site. Your choices ultimately depend on your circumstances. However, remember not to compromise quality for short term benefits. Think of the big picture. Your website is a reflection of your brand, so it pays to make a strong first impression with your audience.  

3. Choose a template with responsive design

This is non-negotiable. According to Statista, 52.2 percent of the world's website traffic came from mobile devices, up from 50.3 percent in 2017. The trend of mobile website traffic exceeding desktop traffic will only continue, as more people grow up being mobile-first internet users.

It's for this reason that any modern website must be responsive – a term that refers to website design that adapts to screens of all sizes. That includes traditional desktops and notebook computers, tablet devices like the iPad and all smartphone devices. 

No matter what industry or audience you're catering to, all websites need to be usable on mobile phones. Search engines like Google also look at a website's mobile-friendliness when determining where it ranks for the appropriate keywords in the search engine results pages (SERPs). That's another big reason to make your site responsive. 

While most website templates are already responsive, a few still do not provide mobile-friendly layouts. Be sure to avoid these templates.

4. Availability of plugins, extensions and apps  

Even if a website template looks great, it's still a good idea to make as many customizations as you need to personalize it. This ensures that the template adapts to your needs instead of the other way around. No template is perfect, so it's important to add unique features to enhance your users' experiences and turn traffic into qualified leads and leads to sales. 

This is where plugins, apps and extensions come in. These small bits of software are designed to add features to a stock website template, improving its functionality. It's a good idea to check what plugins, apps and extensions different website template platforms offer before choosing a theme.  

For example, if your site is an online store, Shopify's library of apps for e-commerce sites make it the best platform for online merchants. Meanwhile, service-based businesses looking to increase their revenue online may be better off using Yondo with its partnership integrations and ability to offer 1:1 consultation, video on demand and webinar functions.  

Take your time when choosing a business plan template 

In many ways, choosing the right template for your website is similar to buying a house for the first time. It looks like a massive undertaking with the potential for multiple mistakes. If you step back and think objectively, it becomes more accessible to logical, fact-based decisions instead of falling into the trap of choosing a template because it looks "pretty." Take your time and don't be afraid to try templates you like. If it doesn't work with your brand, move on to the next template. 
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