SEO is one of those industries which has, somewhat fairly, developed a bad reputation as a bunch of "snake-oil" salemen (and women!). How so? If you have a business email you'd have, at least in your life, gotten an email (usually from some foreign company) promising #1 on page 1 of Google - guaranteed! The problem is, no one can guarantee such results (at least shortterm) as no one but Google knows their algorithm that does the ranking. SEO usually takes time and the client needs to view this as an investment and know that they are trying to help their business for the longterm.

The bad news/The lies

"Guaranteed" results are only achievable one way - scamming the system. The problem with this is that Google is smart. They'll catch you. Guess what happens to your ranking then? That's if they don't totally ban your site from their index.

Get to #1 fast! If you want to rank for a really obscure search term, that's possible. But if you're Mr or Mrs Average Businessperson, getting to the top takes time. There's no "quick fix", though some methods and options can have dramatic effects fairly quickly.

I can do it myself.

While Healthcare isn't what we do, data security, and online security in general, is something we're very interested in. I got an email from IDShield today as part of my membership (IDShield is part of the LegalShield umbrella which we are affiliate, and recommenders, of. I thought it so important that I've added as a post so all my readers can be warned - cybercrime is huge and getting bigger.

Is your healthcare data for sale?

There are, alledgedly, 655,000 patient records for sale on a dark web marketplace. The hacker who's selling them, claims they are from 3 separate healthcare databases. Healthcare ID theft is the golden goose of ID theft. Steal someone's credit card details and you can sell them for $50-100 - limited life, limited value. But get hold of someone's medical ID - that's worth thousands to sell, and even more to use.

Read the whole article >>

Passwords and how to store them

Just recently, one of our clients had their GoDaddy account hacked. The hackers, fortunately, only pointed the domain at a random Vietnamese hosting company - it could have been much worse. However, the client had to go through all the hassle of being without a site for over a week, and dealing with getting access to their account so I could reset their settings. It could have been so much worse though.

2-step authentication

If you have an account (like GoDaddy's) that offers 2 step authentication, turn it on. This sends a text to a specified phone number which the person trying to log on must enter to get in. It's a great layer of security, and simple to set up. Is is more painful for you to then log into your account(s)? Of course, that's the point. However, it sure beats being hacked!

So many passwords, so little time...

Anyone who's followed my posts over the years has seen me talk about passwords and what I think constitutes a PW worth having. About 5 years ago I was recommending 8 character PWs, including numbers, upper and lower case and special characters (the ones

Feeling a little low today? Try this link to cheer you up - never fails with me! Warning, you may need an Australian slang book handy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPSHe0kzMs

How many times, have you phoned "customer service" and gotten someone you cannot understand. As an "import" it probably happens to me a little more, especially if that call center is based in the South, Though I rang DirectTV last week and got a very helpful girl based in Mississippi, and, while she had a strong Southern accent she was very understandable.

Everything we do in business, especially how we interact directly with client and potential clients impacts our businesses. I cannot understand why companies have "customer service" departments where the customer is clearly unimportant and service is a superfluous word. Yes, no doubt they are cheaper than hiring an American with English skills to do it, but does anyone in management or HR really stop and think what image this portrays to their customers?

My wife used the phrase "status quo" once, and I challenged her that there is no such thing. Everything we do, say, hear, read or experience molds us in one of 2 ways - for better or for

I've had a client, from time to time, ask why they should keep paying their monthly subscription. Fair question. As business-people, we all need to be looking at our expenses and trimming where necessary. First though, let me ask a question. 

Why have a website?

With nearly 90% of all purchases starting life as an internet search there's really no question why. The fact is, whether it's a new hair product, a vacation, a car or even a house, we all head to one of the search engines to start our hunt. And if a business doesn't have a solid web presence, then they're already well behind the pack. So, back to the original question...

Why continue paying every month?

What the client is really asking is, WIIFM (What's In It For Me)? And, again, that's a fair question. Some business-people see adverts on somewhere like Craigslist for a website for $299. Awesome, right? Unlikely. Often these are made by someone "in a galaxy country, far, far away...", who often fails to grasp simple English, and has different waking times to you. Plus it's likely a small 5 page site with zero bells and whistles.

But it's cheap! Of course.

Wow - already January 17, and, to our embarrassment we look at the date of my last post..... The truth is, it's been pretty busy since late last year and then with Christmas and New Year, the blog got a little neglected. And now we're neck deep in revamping our CitrusKiwi site as it needs an overhaul. There have been things we were never totally happy with and we have tons new content going on it; so keep checking back! Expected launch date is the month's end (hopefully this month!! LOL!)

Every year...

We recommend that you look very critically at your site at least once a year. If you're one of our clients, then you'll be getting regular updates about traffic and rankings. From the traffic reports you can determine which pages visitors most frequent, and then you can spend time honing those pages to new-client-producing dynamos! And the others possibly need work too, or at least a more enticing linking to capture people's attention.

FAQs

One page we really encourage clients to have is a FAQs page. Many site owners think they shouldn't give "valuable" info away for free. The truth is, most of it is available somewhere

I was asked this week, whether, 1) A "mobile type" website is needed at all, and 2) if so, what type? That's a great question and, at least, showed that the asker was engaged with basic website design ideas, or, at the very least, wanting to know. As the old saying goes, "The stupidest question is the one never asked!"

Do I need a mobile version of any type?

First part - "Do you need a mobile ready version of your site?" An unequivocal, "YES!" There is no doubt that a website that is not easily viewed on a mobile device is already at a serious disadvantage. And, with 60% or more searches conducted on some type of mobile device, that puts your business in a bad internet state.

Which type to have?

The 4 types are in the headline - Mobile, Responsive, App, or Nothing. They all work a little differently, and all have pluses and minuses.

Mobile

This was the first way we did mobile ready sites, and some still do. You'll see a URL starting with m.<domainname>.com. There's 2 main drawbacks of this way. Generally you end up running 2 separate sites (though not always) which means

I quite regularly hear clients and non-clients alike boldly proclaim their website is safe because it's small and insignificant. It doesn't have sensitive data such as credit card or social numbers on it. The reality is quite different.

The 3 main hacking reasons

Malicious "joyriders"

For want of a better term (and to be polite!) I'll liken them to someone who steals your car, races it round town, then crashes it into something and runs off. These hackers are in it to either hack you because you're there, to see if they can, or to deface your site, either with nasty stuff or to promote something that's "dear" to them.

This sort of hacking is usually very evident when you, or you client, visit the site.

Data thieves

These hackers are out for information, stuff they can either make use of - credit card details, social numbers, etc - or stuff they can sell - proprietary info, membership lists, etc. Unlike the "joyriders", being hacked like this is often hidden and goes undetected for quite some time. Recent examples of this are the wll known fiasco at Target, and, even more recently, Dairy Queen.

"Mule" trainers

Again, some literary license

A few weeks back, someone on Facebook alerted me to the raft of permissions I, and every other app user, blindly says "Yes" to when installling them. We give them permission to take photos and videos, send and receive messages, snoop round in our data. The list of permissions is truly staggering.

But this last week, I read that one of the worst culprits is the humble flashlight app - or more correctly, some of them. It seems that some of them have taken noseyness to a whole new level sending all types of info back to their authors. Take the "Super bright LED Flashlight" app. This is what it can do (YOU gave it permission to when you installed it!):

• control flashlight - well that's what you'd expect, but...
• retrieve running apps
• modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
• test access to protected storage
• take pictures and videos
• view Wi-Fi connections
• read phone status and identity
• receive data from Internet
• change system display settings
• modify system settings
• prevent device from sleeping
• view network connections
• full network access

While I'm very happy having a flashlight in my pocket, I don't really think it has any business taking photos