Category: Web Design

Holiday Scams Are Up — How Business Owners Can Protect Their Websites

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of year for small business owners. Between wrapping up projects, handling year-end finances, and trying to step away to spend time with family, things move fast. Scammers know this. They rely on distraction, urgency, and familiarity to catch people off guard—especially business owners who manage websites, domains, and online payments.

If you run a business website, a single mistake during the holidays can lead to compromised logins, fraudulent charges, website downtime, or even customer trust issues. The good news is that most holiday scams follow predictable patterns once you know what to look for.

Why the Holidays Are Prime Time for Scams

During the holidays, inboxes are fuller than usual. Shipping notices, invoices, receipts, and vendor emails all blur together, making it easier for fake messages to slip through unnoticed. Scammers intentionally time their outreach to blend in with this noise.

They also lean heavily on urgency. Messages claiming your domain is expiring, your website has a security issue, or a payment failed are designed to push you into acting quickly—before you stop to verify whether the request is legitimate.

Phishing Emails That Target Website Owners

One of the most common holiday scams comes through email. These messages often appear to be from a hosting provider, domain registrar, or payment processor and claim that immediate action is required. The branding may look real, but the goal is simple: get you to click a link and enter your login details on a fake page.

A good habit is to never log in to anything directly from an email. If something seems off, open a new browser tab and go directly to the service’s website instead. That one step alone prevents most phishing-related account takeovers.

Fraud Calls That Create Pressure

Holiday scams aren’t limited to email. Fraud calls increase this time of year as well. Callers may claim your website is sending spam, your Google listing is at risk, or your domain will be suspended unless you act immediately.

Legitimate providers rarely cold-call with threats or demand instant decisions. Pressure is the giveaway. If a call feels rushed or intimidating, it’s best to hang up and verify the claim independently using a trusted contact method.

Fake Invoices and “Renewal” Requests

Year-end is when many businesses process renewals and invoices, which makes fake billing emails especially effective. Scammers send professional-looking invoices for services like hosting, SEO tools, or “website monitoring.”

Before paying any invoice, take a moment to confirm it’s from a vendor you actively work with and for a service you’re expecting. A quick pause here can prevent money from disappearing into the wrong hands.

Website Login and Admin Account Attacks

For small business owners, website access is one of the most valuable targets. If attackers gain entry to your admin account, they can inject spam, redirect visitors, lock you out, or damage your search rankings over time.

This is where layered protection matters. At Sparrow Leads, all client domains are routed through Cloudflare DNS. While no tool replaces good habits, Cloudflare helps filter malicious traffic, block known threats, and add an extra layer of protection between attackers and your website—especially during high-risk seasons like the holidays.

Strong, unique passwords, two-factor authentication, and keeping your site updated work hand-in-hand with this setup to reduce risk significantly.

One Habit That Prevents Most Scams

The most effective protection isn’t technical—it’s behavioral. Slow down when something feels urgent. Scammers depend on speed and fear. Giving yourself even 30 seconds to verify an email, call, or invoice can stop most attacks before they start.

If you weren’t expecting the message, verify it through a channel you trust. Log in directly, check your account dashboard, or ask your web provider before taking action.

How Sparrow Leads Can Help

Holiday scams are a reminder that your website isn’t a “set it and forget it” asset. Ongoing security, performance, and visibility all matter—especially when your business is busiest.

Sparrow Leads helps small businesses with reliable web design, managed hosting, and SEO services so your site stays secure, up to date, and easy for customers to find. Whether it’s setting up proper protections, keeping software maintained, or improving search visibility, having a trusted partner means fewer surprises and more peace of mind.

Enjoy the Holidays Without Website Stress

You’ve worked hard to build your business and your online presence. A little extra awareness during the holidays can prevent major headaches later—and let you focus on closing out the year strong.

Stay cautious, slow down when something feels urgent, and enjoy the season knowing your website is protected and supported.

December 23, 2025
8 Things Your Website is Missing
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Your website is an incredibly powerful digital marketing tool. A well-designed website should build trust with your visitors, but a poorly designed website can often drive your potential customers away. Here are 8 things your website is missing that will help attract new visitors and keep them coming back!
What Do You Do?

This should come as no surprise, but visitors want to know what you do, and be able to quickly find information to help solve their problem. This can be a number of things, such as finding a product they like, learning about a new topic, or signing up for a subscription. Never assume potential customers know what you do, even if you think it’s obvious. You will want to clearly state what your company offers and how you can help THEM. Remember to keep your language customer-focused and use simple keywords that your target audience is likely searching for.

Clear Navigation

Your navigation is just as important as the content on your site. Don’t make visitors get lost in a bunch of sub-menus looking for information. List the most important information first and in a logical way that makes sense and is easy to follow. The more quickly someone can find the information they are looking for, the better.

Interesting Headlines

A headline is a natural attention-grabber and one of the first things a visitor sees when looking at news articles, social media, blog posts or search results. Headlines can not only be used for SEO, but also foreshadow what’s going to happen next. Not many people will read a body of content without first scanning the headlines to make sure it’s what they want to read in the first place. When creating a headline, include numbers, statistics, keep it brief, and make it as specific as possible.

Content is King (Still)

You’ve heard this a million times before – but that’s because it truly is king. Content is what will bring a visitor to your website searching for an answer. It’s important you are writing high-quality and engaging content that readers find interesting. Blog articles are a great resource – like the one you are reading right now :). Blogs also serve as a way to boost your SEO and build credibility. It’s best to write about topics you find enjoyable, as it will come more naturally and can be a fun way to engage your audience.

Original Images

Many people that first start out go to a stock image service and slap on some stock photos they find. It’s that easy right? Wrong! And worst of all, you now look like everyone else out there with the exact same images floating around the web. It’s going to take a bit more work, but it pays to be unique with your images! It’s okay to take some basic stock photos, then customize them to fit your needs, but make sure you are using your company branding so each image has an original look. There are plenty of services available online, including Canva, Pixelied, and Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark). If you are looking for complete customization, check out desktop software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

Our recommendation (Pixelied)

Pro Tip: Use an image optimizing plugin such as WP-Optimize, that ensures images on your site are properly compressed and optimized for both speed and quality to save on load times.

Call to Actions

So now that you’ve thought about providing high-quality and engaging content, you’ll want to include clear call-to-actions, or CTAs, starting with your homepage and throughout your website as needed. Getting visitors to land on your website is only half the battle. Now think about what it is you want them to do and give them an action to complete. Do you want more email signups? Do you want them to purchase a product or add something to their cart? Whatever it is, it needs to be clear and concise in a few spots throughout your page.

Easy to Find Contact Info

There is nothing more annoying than a visitor trying to get in contact with a company and coming up blank. It’s important for your business to have a human element because people want to be able to relate to you, before they can buy a product or build trust. Make your contact information easy to read and find by including a dedicated contact page or footer with an email, phone number and any social media accounts you might use to communicate with your followers.

Consistent Branding

An important part of building trust is making visitors feel comfortable when visiting your website. When you think of your favorite brands, chances are you can remember things like colors, typography, wording, images and logos. Most importantly, you probably remember how that brand made you feel. Consistent branding is about the experience, and whether or not the brand is successful, it’s going to illicit some kind of emotion.
July 27, 2022
Why Should I Hire a Web Designer?

As a small business owner, you are probably asking yourself, “Why should I hire a web designer?” It’s possible you are starting out with no money and simply can’t afford to pay for something you might be able to do on your own. However, here are the top reasons why you should consider hiring a web designer for your business.

Save Time and Money

There is definitely a truth in saving money up front by doing the entire website by yourself. It might not pay off in the long run though, given the amount of time you need for learning new skills, deciding which platform to use, setting up a domain name, and adding content. Your time is a valuable thing, which is why we either trade our time for money, or money for time. Freeing up this valuable time for more important tasks within your business can help you achieve a lot more productivity, which leads to the next reason.

A Worthwhile Investment

If time is money, then spending money on something worthwhile like your business website can be a huge return on investment. Consider when you want to buy furniture for your home. In most cases, you will want to buy from a furniture store, rather than learning about woodworking, as well as buying all of the necessary tools and equipment. Your time is much better spent on buying a ready made product that has been built by someone who is experienced in that field. It’s best to think of web design with a similar approach, knowing that you are spending money and getting a high-quality product in return that will scale with your business, attract customers, and increase sales. If done right, those sales will far exceed the cost of hiring someone to do the job for you.

Look Professional & Unique

Many website builders include common themes that are used by hundreds or even thousands of other users. This can make your website look very cookie-cutter and unprofessional. A web designer can customize the exact look and feel of your brand. You will walk away with an outstanding design that speaks for itself. This kind of branding will help visitors more easily recognize your business and help it stand out against your competition.

It Helps Customers Find You (SEO)

These three letters (SEO) have such a tremendous impact on your website and business. Search Engine Optimization used to be all about keywords, but it goes far beyond that today. Crafting great content, designing mobile-friendly pages, and developing a logical site structure all play an important role in directing more traffic to your website and getting in front of the right audience.

It Works on All Devices

A large portion of website visitors are mobile users. In fact, mobile devices drove 61% of visits to U.S. websites in 2020. It’s extremely important to have both a desktop and mobile responsive website that works across various devices and browsers. This allows you to maximize your reach. While many web builders have responsive features, a web designer can help in much more detail.

Marketing Strategy

It’s not enough to have a great looking website; it also has to work well for its visitors. Marketing strategy is all about defining the goal of the website, creating an effective customer journey that gets them working closely with your business, and focusing on achieving those goals. In simple terms, ask yourself what you want your website to achieve, but also how are you going to reach those goals? If you hire a web designer to help answer those questions and build a strategy, your business will thank you for it!

Let’s Build Something Together!

Sparrow Leads would love to talk strategy with you! We believe having a great website is just the beginning. Our services also include web hosting and digital marketing to maximize the potential reach of your business.

If you’re looking for other options that Sparrow Leads doesn’t yet offer, please check out these Web Design brands.

If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us on our website.

October 21, 2021