The unreliable other - 3rd-party dependencies

Old black and white photo of broken down car with a small crowrd gathered around it

Sometimes, in life, things we rely on don't work out as expected. It's the same with your website, especially with external services that your website relies on. However, there are ways of managing these 3rd-party dependencies so that they don't cause too much trouble. The external dependencies are, for example, fonts, videos, ads, reviews, analytics. The worst case scenario is that, if one of these services fails, it prevents your web pages from loading. I strongly suggest doing an audit of the external services your website uses and find ways of managing these so that if one does fail (or loads very slowly), it doesn't affect the load time of your web pages. Fast loading web pages are important to your users and important to search engines so worth getting to grips with this issue. Find out more here.

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How to avoid the image licence trap

Make sure you have the correct licence for photographs and other assets you use on your website, social media and other marketing.

Most organisations want to have images on their websites to make them more appealing - nothing wrong with that. However, many people (including me) make use of stock images from online image libraries. Again, nothing wrong with that. However, it is important to understand the licencing issues with stock images and these can vary from one image library to another. If you get it wrong, you may end up being fined for copyright infringement. Find out more about the different licences and how to stay legal.

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Website Risk Management

Managing the risks of having a business website

Website risk management is not a topic that receives a great deal of attention but in this article I’d like to talk about one particular aspect of the subject and emphasise the need for ongoing support and maintenance of business websites.

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