What You Must Document About Your Custom Software
We shared the importance of protecting your software assets and highlighted issues that may arise if your relationship with your software developer goes sour or they suddenly disappear. Now that you know why protecting your software investment and intellectual property is so vital, how do you secure and protect it?
When you own custom software, you don’t just own the interface that you see on the screen. You are not simply a user of the software – you own the software. You need to know what you’re actually getting at the end of the project. While you may not understand what’s being built, you need to know about each asset and dependency that makes up your software.
For example, our team often employs a software product called SendGrid for sending transactional emails in our apps. If we don’t tell you about this and give you the account details and then we disappear (we would never!), how can you update the email template when your company updates a logo or moves locations?
Make sure you’re informed as you move forward with the project. Ask questions, be interested in the answers, and stay involved as decisions are made.
Document, Document, Document
You must have a master document that describes your software or website.
This doesn’t have to be fancy. You can simply create a document on Google Drive or OneDrive. This will allow you to secure the information but also allow it to be easily shared.
Your document should contain a high-level overview of the software, application, or website. If you’re just starting to build, the overview is the plan for what you want to create.
Detail what software languages the software is written in. Document what server or cloud platform it’s built upon. You need to know whether the software is dependent on any third-parties to operate.
Note account information needed to access any and all resources. However, do not store passwords on the master document. Keep those in a safe password vault, like LastPass or Centrify. Make a plan to keep your passwords up to date.
In the event that you need to move your software development to a new team, the master document will be a valuable resource that will save you time and the headache of starting from scratch. Require your software team to keep this document up to date.
Protect Your Business When Working with Any Software Vendor
Your software and website are critical business assets. If your business is about to embark on a new software project or you want to separate from your current vendor or developer, review this guide for steps you should take to control these valuable technology assets.
Four Ways to Optimize Your Website
Is your website slow? Do visitors leave your e-commerce site without making a purchase often? Is your site missing from searches or are you ranking low on the list of your competitors?
Optimizing your website or web-based store should be a top priority.
Here are a few tips to get you seen and get you sped up:
Inspect Your SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing your content and site structure in hopes of getting a higher search ranking and more visitors to your space on the web. Learning about and following best-practices should become something you implement as you build your content.
Use an SEO analyzer or inspector to discover what issues your website currently has. A lot of issues are content-oriented and can be easily remedied.
Check Out Your Page Performance
Using a tool like web.dev or Lighthouse, which is available in the Developer tools inside Chrome, will help you identify issues regarding the performance of your website. Running an audit on your site can show you how quickly your site loads and how quickly your visitors can interact with the content. It will give you a quick rundown of the issues you should take to your website developer.
Optimize the Mobile User’s Experience
More than 70% of web traffic comes from a mobile device, and if your website or e-commerce store doesn’t look great or perform well, you’re going to lose potential customers. Google Search Console’s Mobile-Friendly Tester will give you tips to improve how your content is presented to the handheld world.
Structure Data for Rich Results
Search engines provide enhanced search results on sites with structured data, or schema markup. Schema adds context to a search result and can help your site appear in a prominent position on the results page. Adding this markup to your website is more advanced but will make a difference in getting your content to the right people.