As the Los Angeles Times recently put it, gift cards aren’t just for the big boys anymore. Small businesses are reaping the benefits as well.

However, according to the Times article, only about 8 to 10% of small and mid-size merchants have used them.

For the 90% of small businesses who haven’t gone this route, here’s three simple reasons why implementing a gift card program can help your business grow.

It Increases Spending

According to industry research, consumers are likely to spend more than the initial value of the gift card they received, and a majority of merchants who implement gift card programs report an increase in their sales.

To top that off, gift card users are more likely to buy full-priced items over sale items, and are less likely to bring items back for exchanges or refunds.

It Builds Brand Recognition

The benefits here are twofold.

First, someone has vouched for your business by giving your gift card to someone else—probably to a friend or family member. We all understand the power word-of-mouth can be to creating trust and awareness, and a branded gift card does this overtly and in a very tangible way.

Just as importantly, a gift card serves as a reminder, like an advertisement that burns inside a wallet or purse. Depending on the value of the card, an individual may keep it with them for days or weeks at a time. Think about the last time you needed something that you already had a gift card for—whether it’s dinner or for a free oil change. It’s a win for both you and your customers.

It Generates Repeat Business

Your gift cards users are not only more likely to spend more money at your establishment, but they’re also more likely to visit your business on more than one occasion.

Who wouldn’t want to increase repeat business?

Here’s a bonus reason—they’re cost effective

Sure, the above reasons sound great, but what will it cost you, right? Believe it or not, gift cards are incredibly affordable, which is why they’re becoming increasingly popular among small business owners.

And even better—we can help you. If you’re a US-based business, and you’re interested in learning more, shoot us an email at community@newtektechnologyservices.com (and be sure to ask us how you get can get your first 100 gift cards free).

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For those of you venturing into Google AdWords territory, you may have noticed that your keywords have a “quality score” attached to them. The quality score is the numerical value that is given to each of the keywords used in your campaign, and is calculated based on several criteria such as keyword relevance, landing page quality, and quality ads.

In addition, this number is affected every time your keyword matches a search that is performed. Because the quality score is an important factor in your AdWords campaigns, there are several areas that you should be aware of that are affected by it.

Your Cost Per Click
A higher quality score can mean a lower cost-per-click (CPC), while a lower quality score could mean you’ll pay more for your CPC.

Your First Page Bid
A first page bid approximates the CPC needed to have your ad appear on the first page of search results. Like CPC, your first page bid is also affected by your Quality Score.  If your quality score is low, then Google will place your ad lower than others with a higher quality score.

Keyword Eligibility
Your Quality score will determine if your ad will even enter the ad auction when someone enters a search query for one of your keywords. General rule of thumb is if a keyword scores lower than 2, it won’t be entered into an ad auction.

How high your ad will be ranked
Trying to keep your ad around the 1st and 2nd spots will mean higher click through rates.  But if your quality score is low, so will be your ad ranking. Again, a general rule of thumb is a keyword needs a quality score of 8 to help your ad place high.

So the question is; how can you improve your quality score? Well, here are three things you should start implementing in your Google AdWords Ads to help get your score to that all important 10.

Keyword Relevance
Make sure that your keywords are all closely related to each other. If your ad is promoting your Flower Shop do not bid on “staples” as a keyword.   This will only lower your quality score and affect where your ad lands on the search results page.

Landing Page Quality
Make sure that your landing page is also relevant to the ad that you are running. Creating customized landing pages for each topic of your AdWords ads will not only help improve your quality score, but you will also likely see more sales from the people who click on your ads since the landing pages are targeted to the promotion. For more information on how to create a landing page, check out our blog post on 3 Tips to Creating a Successful Landing Page.

Quality Ads
The quality of your ad also plays a part in your quality score and determines whether or not someone is going to click on your ad. Using your keywords in your ad will help improve the ranking and catch the eye of the customer. If they see the keywords they entered into Google in your ad, they are more likely to click on it.

Follow these three tips and watch your Quality Score increase.

What are some tips you can share that you have use to help improve your Quality Score?  Let us know in the comments below.

Last month, we told you about the importance of creating an in-house style guide to keep your brand, message, and any content you create consistent with your vision. This is important when hiring or contracting copy writers (or content creators) for your website, advertising efforts, or print collateral.

While keeping your in-house style guide up-to-date is important, it’s not always practical to include items outside of what directly applies to your branding efforts. For everything else, most web writers will follow standard style and usage guides, such as the AP Style guide or the Chicago Manual of Style (which is widely used for corporate communicators).

If you write the content for your website yourself, referencing a style guide can help you keep your website content clean and professional.

Now, however, there’s a new tool available: The Yahoo! Style Guide for writing, editing, and creating content for the digital world was just unveiled on Monday.

Unlike traditional guides that still place a focus on print writing, the Yahoo! Style Guide is specifically created for the web. It’s available now at http://styleguide.yahoo.com, and will also be available at your local bookstore early next month.

Write better, edit better, ask an Editor

Like other style and usage guides, the Yahoo! Style guide includes a comprehensive word list, which you can reference if you’re not sure how a certain word should be used or spelled (for example, Yahoo! suggests that your write the word “email” as a single word, without a hyphen). It also includes articles on how to improve your writing for the web, editing guidance, and even an Ask an Editor page where you can, well, ask an editor a question on style and usage.

So far, Yahoo! copy editors have been providing great responses to user questions:

Q: Is it ever OK to use colored text in a sentence for emphasis? I don’t like the look of italics, and I’ve heard that it’s hard to read onscreen

A: If you are the owner of the website, you may of course choose to color words to emphasize them. Doing so has one major drawback, however: People have been trained to regard colored words as links, so when they click the words and nothing happens, they may become frustrated and not click any links on the page, even the real ones.

One of the more useful features, especially if your building your own in-house style guide, is the ability to build your own word list. Download an XML, Microsoft Word, or Rich text format document, and then update it with your own usage notes that you can then provide to your web writers to follow.

So let us know what you think.  Is the Yahoo! Style guide something you find helpful?

Everyone can use some advice now and then, from the neophyte to seasoned web veteran. If you’re new to web design, then tips are crucial to your understanding of how things work, how they should be crafted, and how to do things the right way. If you’re already an expert, then tips and advice can at least reinforce that you’re doing things right. Besides, who doesn’t like a little positive reinforcement now and then?

These six (6) tips aren’t “Web 101″ advice, but they’re not Graduate level either. They’re just good, solid advice for crafting your website to elicit positive results, both from your visitors as well as from search engines.

1. Content means content

If you create content, make sure it’s useable and searchable content. To put this another way: text means TEXT! Catch phrases, company slogans, site/personal/business messages, even addresses – if it’s meant to be displayed as text, then display it as text. Do NOT embed text in images. Sure, it may look cool when you create it in Photoshop, but search engines can’t read text embedded in images (at least not yet). Take some time and learn how to use style sheets if you want to stylize your text. That way you can not only make text look pretty, you also leave it visible to search engines.

2. Act as a Visitor

If you’re building a website chances are you’ve used the web to look for something. You’ve visited a site to buy something, research something, or look at something. You’ve experienced the hassles of searching and you’ve either easily found what you want or you’ve spent more time than necessary finding it, so use that knowledge to your advantage. One of the most useful things to remember when building a website is that search engines want what users want: useful, relevant, easily searchable and understandable content, site organization and information. Make it as easy as possible for people to buy, for people to learn, for people to do whatever it is you want them to do on your site.

3. Keywords in Page Titles and Descriptions

Okay, so maybe this IS a little Web 101, but it’s still very relevant, and falls in line with #2. Be sure to use the words people search for in your page titles and page descriptions. Don’t “stuff” keywords in there, but DO use them.  If you sell custom widgets to pipe fitters in the greater Philadelphia area, then the page showcasing those widgets should be called “Custom Widgets for Pipe Fitters in Greater Philadelphia”. Clear, to the point, and a phrase like “custom widgets Philadelphia”, a solid targeted search phrase, is in there. As far as how “much” to say, a good rule of thumb is to keep page titles to 70 characters (including spaces) and page descriptions to 250 characters (with spaces).

4. Link to YOUR Own Stuff

Internal links can be as important as external links. Besides, you don’t want to send visitors somewhere else for information as that means, quite simply, they’re leaving YOUR site. Once they’re gone, they may not come back. If you can at least recreate content found elsewhere versus just linking to it, then do that, but organic content (that is, content YOU create versus content you rip from somewhere else) can make a huge difference and it is always a good way to keep people coming back for more. The web was built for sharing information, but if you DO use someone else’s content ALWAYS give credit where credit is due – it’s not only the right thing to do, but you may make a few friends, and receive reciprocal links, in return.

5. Create a Foundation for your Site

Okay, this is a little high level, but it’s an often-overlooked part of creating your site. We’ve discussed linking, page titles and descriptions, and the importance of site content. This tip relates to site structure and organization. Think of the “Three Click Rule” – that is, it shouldn’t take a visitor more than three (3) clicks to find the content they want. Now, carry that over to how your site is organized from a folder and sub-folder standpoint. The closer your pages are to the root of your site (that is, the main entry point of your site), the easier it is for search engines to find the pages. In addition, from a URL and linking standpoint, this URL [www.YourDomain.com/products/custom-widgets-philadelphia-pipe-fitters.html] is much easier to crawl, not to mention understand, than this one [www.YourDomain.com/products/custom/widgets/pipefitters/philadelphia.html] as the page is sitting closer to the root of the site.

6. Dashes, Not Underscores

One final simple suggestion: use dashes in page names instead of underscores. Not only do people process dashes as clear separations of words, but search engines (particularly Google) see words separated by dashes as completely separate terms. However, words that are separated with underscores are seen as a single term.  Therefore, use custom-widgets-philadelphia.html and NOT custom_widgets_philadelphia.html.

So there you have it. Are there any questions about any of these? What about YOUR suggestions?

When you start diving into the world of advertising, creating landing pages that a customer will be directed to is critical to the success of your conversion rate. The job of the landing page is to give the customer all the information they will need in order to take an action such as purchasing a product or entering their information into a form. Here are three tips to following when designing your next landing page.

Everything needs to match

When creating your landing page, keep in mind the visual elements of the ad that the user clicked on to get to your landing page. Make sure your landing page matches the ad they just saw. If you have an image that has blues and whites with a picture of dollar signs, then those same elements should be present in your landing page.

Focus on your message

Keep focused on the intent of the landing page. If you are trying to sell an electric screwdriver then your landing page should only focus on that screwdriver. Once you start promoting other products you can confuse the potential customer and lose the sale. Don’t forget they came to your site for the product you were promoting on the ad so only discuss that product on your landing page.

Keep important elements above the fold

Keep all essential elements that a user will need to convert above the virtual fold of your landing page. If the user has to scroll to convert or to look for information that is vital to the decision making process, there is a strong likelihood that the user will exit your site without converting.

Bonus Tip: Test, Test, and More Testing

Once you have finished designing and coding your landing page, make sure you take the extra step of testing everything in a useable environment. Make a checklist of all the important elements and check them off once they pass with flying colors. Some areas you should test:

• Does the landing page match the creatives
• Is your message Focused
• Are the vital elements above the fold
• How long does the page take to load
• Are all links working properly

If you’re an iPhone owner (or even if you’re not), you probably already know that Apple’s There’s an App for That ad campaign isn’t some overstated marketing slogan. With over 100,000 applications, there’s pretty much something for everything—or if not, it’s probably on its way.

But as the App store continues to grow, and applications fight for attention and exposure, it can be increasingly difficult to discover the best apps for a particular need, especially productivity-type applications that business owners might find useful.

So, to highlight a few that might make your day-to-day grind just a little more convenient, here’s our list of 10 Handy Apps for Small Business Owners (in no particular order):

1. iXpenseIt

Price: $4.99
Category: Finance

With what some iPhone users might consider a steep price for an app, iXpenseIt makes up for it by doing a good job of simplifying your daily expense tracking and monthly budgeting.

Taking a client to lunch that you’ll be expensing? This app lets you document the expense in seconds, and even stores photo receipts.

2. AT&T Virtual Receptionist

Price: Free
Category: Business

If your concerned that your businesses’ small size might scare off some customers, this app can help. With AT&T Virtual Receptionist, you get your own business phone system, with custom call forwarding, an auto-receptionist with company greeting, visual voicemail, and even 60 free toll-free minutes.

3. Dropbox

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Once you start using it, you’ll see why Dropbox for iPhone is one of the most popular productivity apps available. Like a virtual drive that exists everywhere you need it, you can store, access, and share your files between your phone and any computer.

4. Scanner Pro

Price: $6.99
Category: Business

Straight out of a spy movie, Scanner Pro turns your iPhone into a portable scanner. Scan items such as documents, business cards, receipts, notes, and even whiteboards, then either email them or upload them to Dropbox.

5. Evernote

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

This brilliant little app sort of works like a personal assistant that follows you around and jots down all of your great ideas you. Easily create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that you can later access from your iPhone, computer, or online.

6. Easy Task Manager

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Don’t just make a to-do list on a pad of paper (what is this, the 80’s?), stay organized and get things done with the help of your iPhone and EasyTask Manager. It syncs up with your Mac or Windows computer, and even supports David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) method.

7. UPS / FedEx Mobile

Price: Free / Free
Category: Business / Business

If your business ships items through either UPS or FedEx on a regular basis, these apps are a must have. Track packages, assign nicknames to shipments, find pickup locations or delivery times, and more.

8. mSecure Password Manager

Price: $2.99
Category: Productivity

I don’t know about you, but I have at least a dozen extremely important logins and passwords to remember at any given time, and if you’re a business owner, you probably have even more. mSecure Password Manager gives you a way to securely store your important information (via data encryption), like passwords or even credit card numbers.

9. Analytics App

Price: $6.99
Category: Productivity

A bit on the steep side in terms of price, this app quickly earns its costs if you’re regularly on the road or in a meetings when you need to check Google Analytics for your website stats. In fact, this app is probably easier to use than a web browser. Get a quick view of reports or drill into your site’s traffic data, all on the fly.

10. BeamMe

Price: Free
Category: Business

Run out of business cards at the conference (or forgot them at home)? This networking application lets you send your contact information to any phone or email address, and even integrates with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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So there you have it — just a few of many iPhone applications out there you might find handy. Have any that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below.

Once you enter into the world of Internet marketing, there are two words that you will continue to run across over and over again: AdWords and AdSense. Like a lot of people, you might not be completely sure of what they even are, or how they can benefit you. So, to clear the air just a bit, check out three things you should know about each before you make that dive into the Google marketing Space.

Google AdSense

AdSense lets your site work for you

With Google AdSense, your site becomes your moneymaker. AdSense is set up so that when a customer visits your site, they will see a targeted banner ad either on the side or top of the web page. When a visitor clicks on that ad, you receive anywhere from $0.10 to $10, depending on the particular Cost Per Click (CPC) rate. AdSense is best suited for sites that have a large number of daily visits. So, if you’re not to that point yet, this might not be a viable revenue generating option for you.

Targeted Ads

Banner Ads placed on your site are related to, and targeted towards, the content on your site. For example, if your site is for a local pet store, then you might see ads for obedience training or local pet adoption locations. This ensures that your ads will receive the maximum amount of clicks possible.

Customization

As a business owner you’ve probably spent a lot of time and money on the look and feel that your site conveys, and the last thing you want to do is place a banner ad that clashes with your site design. A great feature in AdSense is the ability to allow customization of the banners that will appear on your site. From font choice, to over 200 color options, you are in control of the ads that are displayed on your site.

Google AdWords

You become the advertiser

With Google AdWords you are in the advertiser’s seat. You create an ad to be placed on Google’s search network, which will appear when the person doing the search enters certain keywords. You are responsible for the copy in the ad, the keyword choice, and the landing page that the ad will direct them to. Google has some great tools that will help you create your ad and choose your keywords.

Spend

With AdWords you are in complete control of your budget. You set the amount you want to pay on a daily basis and there is no minimum requirement for your spend. You are able to control your daily budget, bids, and ad quality. Your daily budget should be set to an amount that you feel comfortable spending each day. You can edit your daily spend as often as you like. Bids are most commonly set up on a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) basis. CPC determines the amount that you are willing to pay for each click on your ad when displayed by Google. The higher that you bid on a keyword or phrase the higher your position will be. Daily tracking on your keyword bids is crucial to the success of your campaign.

Keywords

Keyword choice can either make or break the success of your campaign. Make sure you take the time to pick the right keywords or phrases to drive traffic to each campaign. In order to help you choose your keywords you can use the AdWords keyword tool. Not only will it give you suggestions on keywords depending on the subject of your ad, it will also provide you with some other useful information like monthly search volume, estimated average CPC, and local search trends for each keyword it suggests. Remember your keywords or phrases can either be broad, like dance studio, or they can have a more narrow focus, like toddler ballet classes. If your ad is broad in its message, choose broad keywords, and for an ad that is very specific to a product or service, choose narrow keywords.

The term Style Guide is rather broad, and it can mean different things to different people in different professions. Traditionally, however, it usually refers to publication guidelines.

Journalists, for example, follow usage and punctuation rules as outlined in the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook; book publishers usually adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style; academic papers in the social sciences–at least in American Journals–follow the style guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA).

These guidelines cover things like how to refer to organizations and places, how to cite sources, and even tell you how to use commas. The purpose, of course, is for consistency. A newspaper article in the Big Bend Sentinel, in Marfa, Texas, follows the same editorial rules as one written for the Baltimore Sun.

Corporations and large organizations commonly have their own publication style guides as well, which helps keep their brand, identity, and message consistent across any number of media. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at the University of Pennsylvania’s web style guide.

As a university with a lot of moving parts, different schools and departments that, to some degree, operate independently from each other, Penn ensures a high level of brand consistency with their style guide. So when anyone within the university, or someone working on behalf of the university (such as an outsourced web design company), publishes content–say, a new website or page–guidelines have already been established. This includes everything from approved colors, logos, branding standards, and general content guidelines.

But what about small businesses? Do they need a style guide too?

Your business might not have the prestige and crafted image of an Ivy League Institution, like the University of Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have just much control in how  your brand is transmitted to the world.   So the the answer is yes, you should create  a style guide, especially if you have several employees that have a hand in communicating externally, or if you’re looking to hire a third-party firm to develop your web presence or market your business, although you might want to keep in mind that your style guide will probably be on a much smaller scale. We’re talking something that might be, at least  initially, as short as one printed page long, which outlines the set-in-stone aspects of your business’s identity.

This might include:

• Branding: Example — your business is registered as Southern California Decor, but in terms of how you want to market your company, you’re always referred to as SoCalDecor, which is ALWAYS spelled as one word.  List all specific ways your brand should be and should not be displayed and referred to, including trademark usage and abbreviations (e.g. Do not refer to SoCalDecor as “SCD” unless “SoCalDecor” is previously mentioned in the same paragrpah).

• Color values, preferred fonts, logos, and required elements such as slogans.

• Tone: Example — your business doesn’t take itself too seriously, so you might want your image to reflect that, from the design of your website to the language used on your web pages, media relations, and printed collateral. Write out a description of how your brand should present itself externally.

• Usage:Example –  Only refer to staff as Yard Architects and never “landscapers.”

Of course, once your business grows and evolves, your style guide should grow with it.  And don’t forget, the next time you’re working with a web designer, a copy writer, or a marketer, be sure to tell them, Hey, here’s my style guide, it’s important that you follow my branding guidelines.

So what are your thoughts on creating a style guide for your small business? Do you feel setting your own style guidelines is an important aspect of protecting your brand? Let us know in the comments below.

How difficult it is to start a blog or a Twitter account? Well, “starting” is never terribly difficult, but keeping consistent with your writing and updating can be. However, it’s possible to lessen some of the stress and strain by understanding, then utilizing, what can be termed “Created Content” versus
“Generated Content.

Created Content

Created Content is basically just what the name implies: content that you create, from scratch, on your own. It is your unique thoughts and ideas put down on paper, either actual paper or the virtual kind. Created Content is the content most susceptible to the dreaded “Writer’s Block” that can cripple the consistency of a blog or Twitter update.

Generated Content

On the other hand, Generated Content is what is “generated” as a result of something external. For example, a blog post that springs from someone else’s blog, a re-tweet, or even a re-tweet with something you’ve appended. The main idea here is that you’re not generating the content on your own. Rather, you’re taking someone else’s “created content” and adding in your own take, your own spin, your own ideas, your own opinions.

To put a finer point on this, look at “Created Content” being proactive whereas “Generated Content” is reactive.

Speed Doesn’t Kill in the Blogosphere

If you want to sit and labor over a blog post, be my guest. However, realize that the impetus of your blog (and, therefore, any result you’re trying to accomplish with your blog) is greatly affected by the delay between posts, updates or whatever. Speed doesn’t kill in the blogosphere (usually), but stagnation definitely will. Therefore, use both types of content to your advantage!

Good Rule of Thumb?

For Blogs: 2 Generated Content blog posts a week, 1 Created Content blog post.

For Tweets: Try the same formula, but a tighter time frame. 2 Generated tweets per day, 1 Created tweet.

[NOTE: I put a question mark on that header because this is just a suggestion - your mileage may vary]

Will this cure your writer’s block? No, but it isn’t intended to. Just realize that you don’t have to be terribly prolific if you want to participate in social media. You just need an opinion at least – use that to your advantage whenever possible and you’ll remain relevant and authoritative. Pepper your Created Content in between Generated Content posts and find a formula that you’re comfortable with, one that will keep you writing and moving towards your goals.

So, if you’re starting an online business, no doubt someone…somewhere…has mentioned “SSL”. It may have been in a casual, inquisitive manner, or it may have been a more frantic “you got a SSL certificate, right? Oh…you HAVE to get a SSl certificate or all of your customer data will be stolen!”

The purpose of this post is to allay some of the fear and uncertainly about SSL and give a short primer on what it is, what it means, and what the differences are between the various alternatives.

SSL – What Is It, and Why Do I Need It?

Put simply, a SSL certificate is used to create a secure, encrypted link between a person’s browser and the web server used to host the page they’re on. The encrypted connection ensures that any data that is transferred from the browser to the web server – for example, when someone fills out a form – remains private during transmission. The certificate is provided by a “Certifying Authority” (CA) like VeriSign or Trustwave (though there are many others), and is most commonly associated with the lock icon that appears in the browser window when someone visits a secured page.

SSL is important because it gives visitors to a secured page of your website “peace of mind” knowing that the information they are inputting on that page is encrypted and not traveling in plain text. Therefore, the potential for that data to be usable should it fall into the wrong hands is greatly, greatly reduced.

What Types of SSL Are There?

Shared SSL
This means that your hosting provider has (usually) purchased a SSL certificate that can be used by multiple people. This generally works by attaching the SSL to a generic domain (though some hosting providers use their own domain), then providing customers with a path to use for encrypting the connection for their individual sites. An example of a shared SSL path would be https://www3.ssldomain.com/customer-domain-name/page-name.html.

Great For:
1. New sites just getting started.
2. Basic forms.

Not So Great For:
1. Ecommerce
2. Any form asking for extremely personal information (e.g., social security number)

Dedicated SSL
This is where you purchase a SSL certificate for YOUR domain. The pathing for secured pages when using a dedicated SSL certificate is really not different than any other page of your site, except for the “S” – https://www.your-domain.com.

Great For:
1. Any use – form information, credit card purchases, FTP access – anything you want to secure and encrypt on your site.

Not So Great For:
1. Some may argue larger scale purchases (in the tens of thousands of dollars), but that’s just because there is an alternative, and it is….

Extended Validation (EV)
This is a new type of SSL that entails a greater degree of authentication and validation by the CA. The benefit to an EV certificate is that the CA has to go through many more steps prior to issuing an EV certificate. Some of these steps entail a physical visit to the requestor’s location and a signed letter by an executive of the company (usually a CFO or some designee); therefore, quite a bit more than is needed for a standard SSL certificate.

Great For:
1. Large ticket items, generally in the thousands of dollars per item.
2. A company wanting to prove its commitment to security.

Not Great For:
1. Anyone without deep pockets. As this certificate entails a bit more labor on the part of the CA, they are a “bit” more expensive.

Finally, a quick word on “Premium” and “Enterprise” SSL certificates. Some companies sell different levels of certificates, and they’re usually labeled something like “premium” vs. “enterprise”, or even “enterprise” vs. “premium enterprise”. The difference between these certificates generally comes down to bit level encryption and/or level of warranty provided by the CA. The CA may even attach some identification scheme to prove the level of security offered, add scanning services, real-time authentication, etc. There are pluses and minuses to all of this, so use your best judgement when deciding what you want to pay for. A good, solid SSL certificate issued by a reliable provider is fine for most companies. If you really want to prove your level of commitment, then adding services is a good idea and may be worth the additional cost.

So there you have it: a decent primer on SSL. This is, of course, not a complete breakdown of SSL, much less a discussion of the technology behind SSL. So, if you have additional questions, please feel free to ask us – we’re here to help! As an aside, Newtek Web Services provides a dedicated SSL certificate on our Storefront Builder plan, and SSL can be added to the Website Builder or any custom site build.