When it comes to investigating Medicare options, many personal financial educators refer individuals to the Medicare.gov website. The official U.S. government website for Medicare is, without question, the most comprehensive of informational portals.

But it can be overwhelming. Especially for the 11,000 men and women who turn 65 every day and first become eligible for Medicare. For most, the terminology is tantamount to learning a new language. Medicare health care plan options are more complex and varied than most are used to.

And, there are some important things the government website doesn’t tell you. For example, it fails to clearly point out the importance of your first plan enrollment. Nowhere on the website does it say that the Medicare plan choice may be irrevocable.

Nor does it really explain what questions to ask before choosing a plan. The Medicare.gov does a great job of offering impartial comparisons, such as premium rates. But when it comes to subjective elements, these are something the website can’t obviously address.

Anyone who has been Medicare eligible for a few years will tell you that selecting the right Medicare plan is not easy. In fact, some industry estimates find that between 25 and 40 percent of people switch after making a choice. Navigating the complexity is especially hard when you are first eligible for Medicare. That’s more so if your current or prior healthcare coverage consisted of a few options pre-selected by your employer or trade union.

One of the Medicare.gov features is the appearance of being able to directly connect with an insurance company. And while it’s logical to think that ‘buying directly’ is going to be better and save you money, it’s simply not true. Quite the contrary. It could be a significant and costly mistake.

The following are things to consider when using the Medicare.gov website as shared by the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance, a national advocacy and educational organization.

1. Medicare.gov is much easier to use for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. But that is just one of the options available to you. It may or may not be your best option. For those who prefer to see any doctor or specialist, only a Medigap plan offers that option. For those who travel or spend time in another state, a Medicare Advantage might not cover you outside of your primary area.

2. The Medicare.gov website doesn’t make it easy to understand things that matter such as in-network, out-of-pocket costs, drug plan coverage, coordination with Veteran’s coverage and Medicaid. “In Network” matters if you decide a Medicare Advantage plan is best for you. Knowing which local doctors, hospitals and especially specialists participate can be tricky to find on your own.

3. Medicare.gov’s Plan Comparisons seem very detailed. But they miss some important information that’s vital. For example, the decision you make when turning 65 could be irrevocable. Switching Medicare plans is not always possible. Medicare.gov does not tell you what’s possible if you don’t like your choice or when your chosen plan changes. These are all very important things to know before locking in a choice.

4. Medicare.gov’s Plan Finder prescription drug search can be confusing for those taking multiple medications. It’s especially important for the millions who take insulin medications.

5. Medicare.gov lists Medicare Advantage plan ancillary benefits (vision, dental, etc.). Unfortunately, there’s little detail of specifically what’s covered in terms of benefits and service providers.

Buying direct from an insurance company such as UnitedHealthcare (NYSE: UNH), Aetna (NYSE: AET), Cigna (NYSE: CI), or Humana (NYSE: HUM) — several of the leaders – or calling an 800-number may or may not be your best option. Is the person on the other end of the line a captive agent for the particular insurance company? Do they get some incentive for touting one particular plan over another?

Comparing Medicare plan options is always your smartest move. A local Medicare professional who is knowledgeable in local options including Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement and prescription drug plan choices can be a well spent hour. Today most insurance agents will arrange an online meeting to discuss options and answer questions.

A national online directory listing Medicare insurance agents is offered by the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance. Access is free and private, unlike most websites that require you enter information before displaying results. Whether you are turning 65 or just have Medicare insurance questions you want answered, it’s a resource worth knowing about.

That local expertise and experience comes at no cost. And, the same plans that are available online or available directly from the insurance company can be sold by an agent appointed with the particular company. Perhaps most important, it’s available for the very same cost.

Cyber security threats are constantly changing. It is important to stay on top of emerging trends to keep your insurance agency website secure. A secure website not only protects your customers, it protects your brand. Here are the six top tips to help you keep your insurance website protected.

1. Be Cautious When Creating Login Credentials
   Giving someone access to the back-end of your website is sort of like giving someone a key to your business. Maintain caution when giving someone login access and always keep login access to the minimum amount of people necessary to keep your website up-to-date.

2. Update Security Patches, Limit Password Attempts, Use Malware Protection Software
   One of the most proactive ways you can keep would-be hackers at bay is to keep all aspects of your website’s code updated. When security patches, plugins, or dependency updates are released, install them as soon as possible. Hackers are constantly looking for exploits to popular coding methods. When an exploit is discovered it is typically patched by the code developers as quickly as possible. The sooner you update your code the sooner you remove a threat that’s accessible to thousands of hackers. And all insurance websites should use a malware detection and prevention solution and limit password attempts.

3. Create a “We’ve been hacked” Response Plan
   Even the best attempts at keeping your site from hacking can fall short. It is absolutely imperative you have a response plan. Audit logs, backups, and contact information for IT support should be included in your response plan.

4. Collect Detailed Activity Logs
   Make certain you have access to log reports on all back-end website functions, to help pinpoint issues when a breach occurs. Every login attempt, page adjustment, code adjustment, and plugin addition should be logged with user time stamps.

5. Perform frequent backups and keep a copy of recent backup data off premises.
   Backing up your website should be an integral part of your response plan, and some hosting providers offer daily backup services. How often you need to backup your website will depend on how often you update it. When your insurance agency backs up your site, save a copy of the backup off of your server in easily accessible cloud storage. If your host is hacked and the server’s contents are compromised, you will have an unaltered version stored out of the hands of hackers.

6. Train Users on How to Stay Secure
   Once you have your Cyber Security plan enabled, train all users on how to stay safe and prevent attacks. Educate users on how to generate very strong passwords and keep them safe by using a password manager, recognize email phishing scams, and how to encrypt emails that contain sensitive information. What’s a strong password? Today, use at least 10 characters, with alpha (including a cap), numeric (random not a sequential string), and special characters (exclamation, etc.). Many website platforms such as WordPress, will generate and/or measure the strength of your password.

To protect your website, start with the basics above, then determine if you have the expertise to continually stay abreast of potential cyber attacks. If not, consider outsourcing this initiative to a proficient web hosting and debeleopment company or insurance marketing agency.

How to increase website traffic fast? Many people look to social media to help them draw more visitors to their website or blog, but did you know that social media also helps you draw more visitors to your product or service as well?

The reason I ask is because you can use social media for promoting your website, business, or product in a number of different ways that help you increase website traffic fast.

In this article I will show you how to increase website traffic with social media posts. So let’s get started:

How to Increase Website Traffic Fast with Social Media How to do this by creating content transformation diagrams. A content-transformation diagram is simply a graphical representation of an information resource.

For example, a website visitor might view a graph of “diet and exercise,” “top sites,” “the best diet plan” and “the costliest diet plan.” Each bar represents a unique source of data or content on the subject of that particular graph.

You can create a content-transformation diagram for any topic with which you are familiar. Once you have chosen your topic, look at the types of content available on the Internet on the topics you chose.

If you see that there on the topic, that’s a good indication that you should consider there is a lot of content out putting some of it on your website.

The best ways to drive traffic to your website, then, are to rank for high search terms related to your niche and write articles and blog posts around those keywords.

One of the easiest and most powerful methods of keyword ranking is using Google’s Keyword Tool. This tool can show you what keywords are receiving the most searches on Google every month.

You can use this data to find out what keywords will be the best to drive traffic to your website. It will also show you what keywords other webmasters are using to get traffic to their sites as well.

Once you have found some good keywords, you need to write articles around those keywords. Make sure the articles are focused on your topic.

If you want people to click on your ads, you must provide useful information and valuable content that are in demand on your niche. If your articles are not focused, readers will be turned off and they won’t click on your ad. Focus on keywords that your target audience is likely to search for.

You need to also submit your website to several quality score websites. The higher the quality score, the more likely webmasters are to publish your ad on their sites.

These sites work in conjunction with Google AdWords. The higher the quality score, the higher the ads will be displayed on the pages where your ads will appear.

If you can get your ad to show on quality score websites that are closely related to your keywords, it will be even easier for you to increase traffic to your site with AdWords.

Finally, you need to make one last social media push. You can’t just have a bunch of traffic come to your site one day and then forget about it. Keep these social media outlets active.

Schedule your posts so that you have content fresh for your visitors on an ongoing basis. It’s important to engage your visitors and talk to them in a way that will build a relationship with them over time.

You have just learned some of the best ways to increase website traffic. These are great for increasing your website traffic in a permission-based email list.

It will help you generate quality traffic and retain visitors who have been your paying customers for many years. Now all you have to do is get started.

California has become the first state to pass a law giving minors, those under the age of 18, the right to remove any information they have posted to a website. The law also restricts the website from selling their personal information.

The new law in California will be effective beginning January 1st, 2015. The law applies to any mobile service or website if it has members under the age of 18 who are also residents of the State of California. Needless to say, this will encompass a large number of websites and mobile apps.

Content Removal Rights

Websites will need to permit minors to remove information or any content they have posted. For example, if you have a forum and a minor has made forum posts, the minor must be allowed to remove the posts. If the minor has been banned from the site then the website owner will need to remove the content upon request from the minor.

This will be a minor inconvenience for some websites, but a major headache for others. Much will depend on how the website content is managed. For some sites deleting content site wide will be as easy as pushing a button. For other sites a manual and laborious task of finding and deleting content will be required. For those sites they will want to think twice about permitting minors to post and the ramifications if a minor user gets upset and then demands their content be removed.

Selling Personal Information

California law will prohibit websites from using personal information about a minor to market certain categories of products. Initially, this will include firearms and alcohol, as one might expect, but also aerosol paint, tanning products, and certain dietary supplements. It is reasonable to expect the list of prohibited items will only grow.

It is important to realize this ban will override the website’s privacy policy. A website cannot have a policy of using personal information to market these categories of products.

Time to Plan

The law was passed in 2013 and becomes effective beginning in 2015. This is to give website owners time to evaluate their website: who their users are, what content can be provided by users, how easy it is to remove content, what information is sold, and so on.

One issue will be to see if your website is or is not directed to minors and make necessary changes.

Claimed ignorance about the age of a user will not be a defense. The law says information such as their profile, what they say in their posts, their location and address or identifying themselves as going to school will be enough to put you on notice a minor is using your site.

How to create a business website is an important question to ask if you are looking to build a web presence for your business. Before going through the steps of creating a website, it is important to be clear on your goals for building a business website.

Most businesses want customers/clients to be able to find the business when searching the web for their product or service. Also, businesses want to provide information to help customers/clients learn more about their products and services to determine if their product or service can help them. Businesses can also want their website to help with important businesses functions.

Some of the important business functions are creating a platform to contact the business, keeping track of inventory, allowing consumers to order from the website, providing a platform to download software, helping potential investors learn more, and delivering quality branding for the business. The first step in how to create a business website is to determine what business functions your website needs. After you’ve determined what business functions your website needs, the next in determining how to create a business website is determining how you are going to build the business website.

For most businesses, the smart choice is to hire a development agency with experience in building quality websites. If you have an extremely technically competent staff member, there is a possibility to use someone internally. But today, the need to have a website work across many different types of browsers and devices, it can be a very expensive mistake to have someone internally learn what to do and can be even more expensive if there are mistakes on a live website that damages your business.

After you have your website built, the next step in the process of how to create a business website is to find hosting for your website. If you have hired a website development company, the website development company can often handle the hosting for your website. There are some good hosts out there, but there are also some bad hosts out there as well, so it is important to make sure the host can handle all the required technologies needed for your website. Using a CDN to speed up the speed of your site could also be a good choice depending on the size and requirements of your business.

The next step in the process of how to create a business website is to obtain the traffic of potential customers/clients to your business. Your business should have an SEM/SEO (search engine marketing/search engine optimization) plan to bring traffic to your website. SEM/SEO incorporates creating advertising campaigns on platforms such as Google Ads/Facebook Ads and optimizing websites/creating content to bring in additional traffic. There are many ways to bring in traffic to a business website. Hiring an SEM agency to help is a good way to start.

WeCutFoam, provider of foam prototyping, cutting and machining services and fabricator of custom props, letters, logo, signs and exhibits, is proud to announce the launch of its newly redesigned website. This modern redesigned website focuses on improved functionality and easy access to essential information and services, including also a quote request page, a dedicated contact page and an elaborated page about the company and its core values.

The newly designed site offers WeCutFoam customers and visitors a comprehensive understanding of the company’s services to especially benefit and provide resources and solutions to signs shops, wedding & event planners, artists, branding marketers, retail stores, companies and anyone in the amusement industry. The website features a distinction between the types of services the company offers: It specifies all the 2D foam cutting services using CNC hot wire foam cutters and laser cutters as well as the 3D machining services using CNC routers machines.

The website also offers updated information on articles, news and press release, a new look for its blog presenting recent projects, new videos, a show case gallery of projects’ photos as well as additional services offered as EPS foam recycling, hard coating and 3D printing as well as projects gallery.

The new attractive website has a clean yet colorful design with multiple photos and show cases, as well as enhanced content explaining each service and its benefits: foam letters and logos, TED and TEDx signs, custom foam signs, vinyl printing, museum exhibits, 3D props, CNC prototyping and architectural shapes. A contact option is always available at the top of the page to allow customers to connect easily and ask for a quote, including a resource drop down to show case all services and products offered.

The new design is focusing on the company’s mission to present its customers and visitors with cost effective combined with fast turn-around foam prototyping, cutting and machining solution. The website will be updated on a regular basis with news of new services and products launch, changes, innovations, new press releases and company’s milestones. New pictures will be added to the site on a regular basis, so visitors can inspect and get updated with the latest projects as soon as they are created.

“We are excited about our newly designed website launch and the vigorous information it provides for our customers, our partners and visitors to better understand the company’s services and adaptation to the market growth and needs,” said Sigal Barnea, Co-Owner of WeCutFoam. “We believe that this new site will allow our visitors to have a very informative experience as we continue to grow and increase our market presence.”

Sigal continue to add that the new site coincides with the company’s expanding services and growth, specializing in foam projects. She emphasized that the primary objectives of the redesign was to focus on the services, aesthetics, simplifying the content and navigation, and increasing the visibility of the products.

Nessy Barzilay, the web designer and owner of nessy-design.com states that it was fun and rewarding to work on WeCutFoam’s website. “I was given the task of changing the face of the website to be more attractive and alive, while putting the customers and visitors in the front row” said Nessy. She continued to say that the focus was on organizing the site into the right service and product categories for ease and user-friendly navigation while not compromising the content and information conveyed. The result is a fun, vibrant and informative website.

Culture and Website Localization

With the rise in ownership of computers and internet usage growing daily, the internet is fast becoming the primary port of call for information, shopping and services. In addition, those computer and internet users are increasingly from non-English speaking countries. At the end of 2002, it was estimated that 32% of internet users were non-native English speakers. This figure is constantly rising. In response, businesses have quickly become aware of the benefits of website localization.

Website localization is the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a target audience. Website localization is a multi-layered process needing both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge. If either is missing, the chances are that a localization project will encounter problems.

In the majority of cases it is the lack of linguistic and cultural input that lets a website localization project down. In order to give an insight into the impact culture has on website localization the following examples depict areas in which a solid understanding of the target culture is necessary.

Language in Website Localization

Translating a website from English into another language is not as simple as it may appear. There are numerous factors that have to be taken into consideration when translating a websites’ content. Do all the words, phrases, sayings and metaphors translate directly to the target language? Would it be wise to translate the phrase “everyman for himself” in text describing a company or product if this is going to be read by a highly collectivist culture? Does the content of your website use humour and if so will the target culture appreciate or even understand it? Native alternatives should always be sought and used in any website localization.

When translating into another language carefully consider the variants. If it is to be an Arabic website then is aimed at Tunisians or Iraqis, Egyptians or Yemenis? If you are targeting all Arabic speakers then ensure Modern Standard Arabic has been employed by your translator.

One must analyse the style of the language and the target audience. If the audience is foreign business personnel, the vocabulary, grammar and punctuation must reflect this. If the audience is informal or youth orientated then a more relaxed language must used. Just as we in the UK would identify the difference between a site using ‘posh English’ and ‘street English’, other cultures will have the same perceptions of language. Using the wrong language for the wrong reader in your localization project will lead to a misunderstanding of the site or company.

It is essential to assess what information is necessary to carry over into the new site. Do not assume that all information on the English site is automatically transferred over. One must evaluate the target culture and society. Is it a culture that relies on information rich writing to fully understand a concept or product or is a culture that relies more on images or one that needs little text to grasp ideas and concepts? If your English site employs a lot of technical language then consider how best to transfer these concepts without the use of language.

Pictures in Website Localization

Images carry many subtle cultural messages within them. These can speak volumes about your company or product. Pictures or images may have certain negative connotations that may repel viewers. This is now an area that thankfully is receiving attention in website localization.

For example, if a travel site in a Muslim populated country used pictures of scantily clad women in bikinis, disco dancing and beer drinking, the chances are that they would not be very successful.

When including pictures of personnel it is wise to tailor these to what the target audience will look positively upon. A picture of the Director behind a desk in an office will be fine for a seniority respecting society, but for an egalitarian society it is better to show the Director mixing with staff.

It is through pictures that websites can either relate to an audience or repel them.

Symbols in Website Localization

As with pictures, symbols can cause problems in localization. Icons using fingers such as an OK sign or V-sign may mean different things to different cultures. Our Western symbols do not always mean the same abroad. An oft cited example is the representation of the house referring to a home page, or a letterbox to mail. The use of animals in logos can cause embarrassment and further problems. For example, pigs are considered unclean in the Middle East and cows as holy in India.

Colours in Website Localization

Colours are also loaded with cultural meanings that need to be analysed in website localization. Choosing the wrong colour for your logo or background will not always have disastrous consequences, but avoiding them is always advisable.For example, in Japan white is commonly associated with mourning. In China red is auspicious. In Africa certain colours represent different tribes.

Navigation in Website Localization

It is even the most taken for granted aspects of website layout that must be analysed properly for a successful localization project. In the West we assume that how we present websites is how it naturally should be done. This is far from the truth.

A common problem experienced in localization is the effect on layout through translation. Foreign scripts can make your pages need more room or less room depending on the target language in the localization. Not all languages read from left to right. Arabic is from right to left and both Japanese and Chinese are from top to bottom.

Access to certain pages is also a factor that can be considered as relevant. Highly hierarchical cultures may view a site positively if it is ‘member only’ access, whereas an egalitarian culture may find it disagreeable.

Content in Website Localization

Examining your written content in any localization process in critical to its success. This is not only important for proper transfer of aspects such as dates, currencies, and units of measurement but for the presenting the correct image.

For example, will the site focus on a product or a company? Both bring with them certain considerations dependent on the target culture. If a company is marketing itself in a culture that respects seniority and hierarchy, readers will want to see information on senior members. Along with their titles and rank they will also want to evaluate them through information on their professional qualifications, experience and contacts. These areas in the UK may generally be avoided as in our culture it is bordering on self-indulgence and boasting.

Conclusion

Culture affects everything we do, say, read, hear and think and even websites cannot escape the influence of culture.

The impact of culture on website localization is huge. The above few examples are literally the tip of the iceberg. The number of variables that have to be taken into consideration requires the expertise of both a website designer along with a cross cultural communications consultant. In tandem they can identify the issues that will impact on the successful localization of a site.

At a time where the internet is entering more and more houses it is crucial that companies involved in the internationalization of their business consider website localization and take care to use effective cross cultural analysis.

In today’s era where technology is on a boom and reaching a new height day by day we must understand the need of graphics and their importance in our content which we use in our web pages to represent our business.

Apart from importance in content, there are several aspects in GUIs (Graphic User Interfaces) to be kept in mind if we are thinking of introducing new graphics or improvise existing graphics in our web page such as its relativity to the content and the topic, clarity of expression in the exact manner we want to portray. Further, we should make sure that the content we are uploading should be out of the box and unique or should be at par with the competitors. Well the best advice for beginners in the designing field is that they can keep themselves in customer’s place and then realize how to make a catchy GUI for any webpage.

Any market research will yield the same result that the webpages with better GUIs, more visual content such as videos, animations, images have far more conversion ratio as compared to those webpages who involve less visual content. Although quality also plays a vital role in business generation, but Visual content is a very important requirement which adds a better look, also provides a better understanding to the viewer. Recent studies have shown that any webpage visitor in general reads around only 20-25% of the text content where in rest 75-80% visual content, Social Media also uses around 40-45% of its space to share visual content than compared to any other format, all these are indications that the consumers are nowadays more keen to get a visual content than text

Also, when we talk about Visual/Graphic/Media content, we ought to mention that they are relatively easy to understand and science also approves that they reach the human brain faster than textual content. Further, the visual content which is very important lately for our webpages, an advice to all the fellow developers, we should not totally forget about the textual content. Yeah, the introduction of Graphics, Visuals or Media will take space and hence we have to insert only limited textual data to compensate as none of the consumers like heavy or extra ordinarily lengthy webpages. The textual content, however, should be to the point, crisp and must look attractive if we want our webpage to generate better traffic and yield a good amount of business for us.

Visual and Textual content, both go hand in hand. In the end, the most important thing is relevancy to the subject and quality of approach which we want to present to our customers for better marketing.