Tushar, Author at anteelo

The Most Recent Website Development and Digital Marketing Trends

Posted on 25/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

As the share of online shopping continues to grow, the amount companies spend on website development and digital marketing is increasing by around 30% year on year. Underlying this investment is the need to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market. Companies are using their marketing budgets in a range of ways, from mobile websites to augmented shopping experiences. Here, we’ll look at some of the hottest trends currently having an impact.

1. Data-informed strategies

Today, pretty much every major business decision makes use of data and this includes digital marketing plans. It is now commonplace for businesses to integrate market, competitor and customer data and use it to inform their marketing strategies, right down to how they design and manage their website. They use a wide range of data sources to achieve this, including data on online engagement, order fulfilment, purchase history and retail trends.

Integrating this data helps produce more innovative and highly targeted digital marketing strategies that are better able to achieve the specific goals of the organisation and which work best within its operational and financial constraints.

2. Mobile-first websites

Mobile-first websites are those where the main focus is on the mobile user rather than the computer user. Although this is something which has been pushed by Google and could be of benefit in SERPS ranking, the main reason for building websites for mobile devices is that people are shifting more towards them. In the UK, we already spend twice as much time, per day, using a smartphone to search the web than we do a laptop. This has, unsurprisingly, led to significant growth in the amount we spend when using our phones.

As this trend is set to continue, companies are investing more and more into providing better mobile-friendly sites. It is no longer good enough to simply use a responsive theme if all it does is rejig the layout of a computer-based website for display on a mobile phone. Instead, developers are being asked to produce flatter websites where all elements are more mobile-friendly and which are optimised for quick loading, regardless of the type of internet connection being used. These sites are often single page (using scrolling instead of page to page navigation), have minimalistic, grid or card style designs and feature fewer images.

3. The customer-experience

Business has become increasingly focused on pleasing the customer over the last few years and this means looking after them at all stages of their dealings with you. To do this, you’ll need to provide personalised experiences that are engaging, simple and rewarding. And more than ever, you’ll need to do this in a way which they find ethical.

This means providing them with tailored content and products, giving them all the information they want in the most accessible of ways (think online chat, FAQs, knowledge bases, how-to videos, etc.) making purchasing and the delivery of goods as simple and convenient as possible (e.g. next day delivery, in-store collection, local pick up points) and rewarding them with customised offers, loyalty bonuses and the like.

4. Omnichannel marketing content

Content marketing has become an indispensable element of today’s successful digital marketing strategy. However, in the same way that customer choice has pushed for omnichannel shopping, content marketing strategies must also make use of the wide range of channels that audiences frequent. This means more than simply putting the same information on Facebook and Instagram, it requires a strategy that coordinates content in a way that is consistent, integrated and, above all, seamless across the devices and channels your customers like to use.

5. Building trust

Modern, highly literate consumers are far less taken in by advertising than they used to be. Every schoolchild is taught the techniques of writing persuasively and so understands the nuances of an advert. Today, therefore, ads are no longer taken at face value and customers are looking for additional social proof before they purchase. This comes in the form of recommendations or social likes by people they know, online customer reviews, independent professional reviews, influencer recommendations and products or services which are featured on reputable sites.

Rather than focus your marketing budget totally on promoting your own company directly to your audience, today, it is important to get others to promote you too. This means building partnerships with other customers, influencers and media organisations and enabling customer reviews about your products or about your business itself.

6. The rise of augmented reality

Augmented reality has been around for a few years and is beginning to take off in a big way. Essentially, it is a way to use digital technology to provide additional value to customers. For example, there are now apps or website platforms that let customers try products on before they make online purchases. One well-known UK optician has recently put augmented reality to good use by enabling customers to see what their spectacles will look like on their face. Before this, customers had to visit the shop before making a purchase decision, now they can do it online. Estate agents also use augmented reality to give home hunters a virtual tour of a house. No longer relying simply on photos, searchers are given a much-improved understanding of the home’s interior. In this way, those that do go for an on-site visit are already more inclined to put in an offer.

Conclusion

There are many factors influencing how businesses are updating their websites and digital marketing strategies, from advances in technology to shifting patterns in customers’ expectations and browsing behaviours. Hopefully, this post will have shown you what these influences are and the reasons why the trends mentioned here are having such an impact.

The Smart Business Choice: Managed Hosting

Posted on 24/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do everything in-house. You wouldn’t deliver your own letters, service your company vehicles or rewire the offices; you’d pass those tasks on to expert third parties like the Post Office, a garage or an electrician. Surprisingly, not every company uses the same logic when it comes to the complex matter of managing their IT infrastructure. There are, however, several advantages of moving away from a DIY approach and opting for managed hosting services and in this post, we’ll explain what they are.

Managed hosting – the basics

Managed hosting is a service designed to alleviate the server management burdens faced by in-house IT staff so that they can focus their time and efforts on business-related projects. Offered by leading service providers like Anteelo, it provides companies with all the hardware and computing resources they need (servers, high-speed storage, network, RAM, bandwidth, CPU, etc.) and provides a flexible range of management services which reduces the time, money and effort needed to carry them out in house.

With the hardware being housed securely at the service provider’s datacentre and its expert IT staff taking care of management, admin and technical support, companies find it easier and more cost-efficient than operating their own system on-site.

Range of managed hosting services

Different service providers offer different ranges of service. In general, however, the typical managed hosting package will include datacentre operations such as server housing, site security, national grid and back-up power, air-conditioning, building maintenance and IT engineers, etc., together with hardware and networking.

Aside from managing the infrastructure, other aspects of the provision will include the operating system (including updating and patching), application infrastructure, application installation, real-time server monitoring, performance optimisation, Next-Gen firewalls, intrusion prevention and remote backups. In addition, there is expert technical support on tap, 24/7.

Many hosts offer a flexible range of services, extending beyond those mentioned above to include such things as application management. Here at Anteelo, it is even possible to create bespoke IT solutions to meet the precise needs of your organisation.

Versatile uses of managed hosting

Managed hosting is ideal for a wide range of computing scenarios, offering practical solutions for website hosting, running legacy applications, extending company infrastructure and more. By providing single tenancy hosting, it is also beneficial for companies which need outstanding IT performance, significant data storage and which wish to make use of data analytics. Many organisations also use it to back up data and for disaster recovery.

The single-tenant hosting that comes with managed services also provides better compliance for organisations which need sensitive or personal data stored securely.

Aspects of managed hosting to consider

Aside from the information mentioned above, when looking at different managed hosting solutions, organisations should also consider the following aspects:

High availability: If you are hosting mission-critical apps on your managed service, it is crucial that they stay online all the time. Make sure you opt for a provider which guarantees 100% uptime.

Control panel: Although a managed solution, there are still aspects of your IT that you will need to take care of in-house, such as managing user accounts. A quality control panel, like Plesk or cPanel, will make this much easier to do.

Firewall: Not all firewalls offer the same level of protection. Next-Gen firewalls, like FortiGate, offer the most advanced protection from a wide range of threats.

Port speed: Port speeds of 1GB offer the network performance needed for faster loading websites.

High–performance: Whether carrying out data analytics or handling thousands of customer requests simultaneously, you want hardware that can perform exceptionally, such as Intel Xeon CPUs and SSD hard drives.

Full root access: You should have total control of your server, so make sure your provider enables full root SSH / RDP access.

Technical support: IT issues happen for a variety of reasons and when you least expect them. For this reason, 24/7 expert technical support is absolutely essential to help you get things sorted in the quickest possible timeframe.

Conclusion

The range of services included in a managed hosting package can make it more expensive than unmanaged hosting, however, it can work out significantly cheaper than managing your system in-house. You won’t, for example, need to spend capital on hardware or pay for overheads such as server housing, IT staff time, power or insurance. Aside from the savings, many of the technical headaches caused by IT management will be taken care of on your behalf, freeing up your staff for more critical tasks. In addition, you’ll benefit from tighter data security, enhanced compliance and servers which perform better.

8 Reasons Why Cloud Hosting Helps Businesses Compete

Posted on 23/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Organisations are flocking to cloud computing in greater numbers than ever before and many are expanding their use of it. This comes as no surprise, given the many advantages that cloud migration brings. In this post, we’ll look at how the cloud hosting enables its users to outperform their competitors.

1. Cloud users save money

One of the primary reasons that organisations migrate to the cloud is to cut costs. By using the hardware and services of your cloud provider you’ll no longer need to spend enormous sums on purchasing your own hardware. And that’s just the start of your savings. As you won’t need a data centre any longer, you can eliminate the expenses of running one. The money spent on maintenance, management, space, security, air-conditioning, power, insurance, etc. can all be put to better purposes.

2. Instant scalability

Being competitive means being able to adapt at speed to market demands. One of the drawbacks for businesses running their own data centre is that scaling up can be a slow and expensive process. If you are getting increased traffic to your website and you need additional resources to cope, scaling up can involve purchasing a new server, setting it up and getting it online. This can take quite some time to do. When you use the cloud hosting, your service provider’s vast data centres mean that you can have all the resources you need instantly.

Another issue faced by organisations scaling up in-house is that the additional resources they acquire aren’t fully utilised. For example, your company may get high traffic for certain periods but for the rest of the time, the new server sits idle. This doesn’t make it the wisest investment. Cloud services, however, are charged on a pay as you go basis. You only pay for what you use, so during quieter times, the costs are minimised.

3. Speedy application deployment

It’s not just scaling up that can be done quickly in the cloud hosting , the deployment of the critical applications needed to give you the edge in a competitive market can also be done instantaneously. This can be particularly advantageous for smaller enterprises as it gives them the same speed of deployment as larger competitors who have superior in-house capacities.

Cloud-based apps require far less time for successful execution, most of them being available immediately on signup, giving you instant access to game-changing technologies such as AI and machine learning.

4. 100% uptime

Today’s organisations rely on critical applications to run their operations. The disruption caused by downtime is a major issue, as events such as server failures can cause operations to grind to a halt. Fixing the problem can be difficult and time-consuming and the resulting losses and reputational damage can be substantial.

In a cloud environment, server failure cannot cause downtime. As clients are hosting on virtual machines, when a physical server error occurs, the virtual machine is simply moved to another part of the server cluster. This hyper-converged infrastructure protects organisations against everything from hard disk issues to entire server failures, guaranteeing 100% uptime for critical applications.

5. Latest technologies, exceptional performance

Another problem with in-house data centres is that the technology organisations purchase or lease soon become less competitive than the newer, high-performance products that are regularly released onto the market. Continually updating is both expensive and disruptive and this often puts companies at a disadvantage.

For cloud service providers, investment in these new technologies is a necessity in order for them to remain competitive and meet the growing expectations of their clients. The advantage for cloud users is that they will see their applications running on the latest, high-performance servers without the need to invest in the technology themselves. These are servers where performance is consistently optimised, using powerful processors, blisteringly fast SSD drives and load balancing to maximise speed and capacity utilisation.

6. Increased security

Every organisation has concerns about security, so it’s good to know that cloud providers are obliged to comply with stringent security regulations to safeguard customer data. Your provider will protect you against hacking, malware and internal data theft. Using state of the art firewalls that feature intrusion prevention and in-flow virus protection, threats will be detected and isolated long before they reach your server. Other security features include data encryption, remote backups and VPN.

7. Organisational transformation from working online

As a cloud user, your employees can access your system from anywhere with an internet connection and this has helped many organisations to reap the benefits of remote working. It enables companies to employ highly skilled members, no matter where they live, and bring about more flexible working hours. It also means they can save on the amount of office space needed as staff can collaborate in real-time using online conferencing and through the sharing of synchronised files.

Furthermore, as employees can access the company’s system using connected devices such as smartphones and laptops, many companies have dispensed with these costs by introducing a ‘bring your own device (BYOD)’ policy that uses authentication to maintain security.

8. Do more with technology

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the cloud is that it is a technology that enables you to do more with other technologies. With Big Data analysis, machine learning and AI all rapidly deployable, just imagine what potential cloud brings: personalised marketing and communications, improved customer services, discovering new development opportunities and much more. Cloud is also the ideal place for companies wanting to take advantage of the Internet of Things, augmented reality and the other ground-breaking innovations that are helping to reshape the way the world works.

Conclusion

Cloud hosting enables even the smallest of companies to take advantage of the technologies that are transforming today’s marketplace and working environments. In doing so, it makes them far more competitive, while enabling them to spend less and do more. At the same time, these organisations can also benefit from the cloud’s high-performance and reliability, its scalability and flexibility and its highly secure environment.

Before registering a domain name, think about these six things.

Posted on 22/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Choosing the best domain name for your business is a critical but often challenging decision. Get it right and it can attract lots of visitors to your website and improve your online presence. However, before you make a final choice there are a number of things you need to consider and, in this post, we’ll look at what they are and explain why they are important.

1. Getting the basics right

Before coming up with ideas for a domain name, you first need to consider how visitors will use them. If someone is looking for your website, they’ll need to remember what it is called and then type it into the search bar. A good name, therefore, is one which is easy to remember and easy to spell. Keeping it short and simple and doing away with over quirky spellings make for a good starting point.

2. Keyword names versus brand names

There’s lots of debate about whether your domain name should contain keywords, e.g. cambridgecleaners.com or brand names, e.g. hargreaves.com. In reality, there is no right or wrong, however, the choice you make should decide upon the market you are in and the long-term goals of your business.

A brand name is unique and once your business is established can have a status that attracts customers because of your reputation. If you are in a market where brand is important, then that option might be best for you.

Keyword-based domains help people associate you with the products or services you sell and/or the location where your business operates. Cambridgecleaners.com would be helpful to anyone in Cambridge looking for a cleaner because the name says it all. A potential issue, however, is if your company diversifies or specialises in the future and the keywords in the domain name don’t accurately indicate what you do.

3. Finding your ideal domain name is already taken

This is a common problem and not simply because there are other organisations with the same name. Some companies register thousands of unused domain names just so they can sell them at a profit when someone else wants them.

If you find that the domain name is already taken, the first step is to visit the site and see if the website is live and being used. If it is and the site looks successful, there’s little chance of you being able to purchase it and you may need to seek an alternative domain name. If there is no live site, there is a much better chance that it can be purchased. You should check the Whois database to find out the site’s owner so you can make an offer. There are, however, no guarantees the owner will sell and they can charge what they like.

4. Finding your ideal domain name is being used on social media

While your ideal domain name might be free, it is also a good idea to see if someone else is using that name on social media. If you want to create a brand called GameU and register the GameU.com website thinking you’re good to go, it can be disconcerting to find out immediately afterwards that there’s a massively successful GameU YouTube channel with 10 million subscribers. Chances are, everyone who visits your website would be looking for the YouTuber, not for you. It’s the same with influencers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

5. Choosing the right domain extension

Domain names come in two parts, the part before the dot and the part that follows it. While the first part is important for your branding and for helping people find you, the second part plays a number of important roles and shouldn’t be overlooked.

The second part of the name is known as the Top Level Domain (TLD) and this is used to categorise your website so that users and search engines have a better understanding of what its purpose is. We all know, for example, that .gov is for government websites, .co.uk is for UK companies and .org for non-profit organisations.

Not so long ago, choosing the right TLD was a fairly simple affair as there were few to choose from. Today, however, there is a far greater number and more are being added all the time. The good news is that many of these are keyword-based and this means that there is less need to use keywords in the first part of the domain name. Some examples of new TLDs include .London, .restaurant and .finance.

One of the advantages of these new TDLs is that it gives people more chance to get the domain name they want. If hargreaves.com has been taken by a builder in Macclesfield, the chances are that hargreaves.london or hargreaves.cafe is still available.

6. Registering multiple extensions

It is common practice for companies to register multiple TDLs associated with their brand name in order to protect their reputation.

If you ran a successful eCommerce store called abcfashions.com and only registered that one domain, it wouldn’t take long for others to register an abcfashions.co.uk or abcfashions.co website and pretend to be your company. They may sell counterfeit versions of your products to unsuspecting customers or just plain steal from them. All of this can have a devastating effect on your reputation. This is why registering multiple TLDs became so common.

This may be something you want to consider. However, with so many TLDs available today it would cost you thousands of pounds a year to register them all. Instead, it might be worth registering the ones you think most useful. If you have a .co.uk TLD, for example, it might be wise to consider registering the .co, .com and the .uk versions at the same time.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are quite a few things you need to consider before choosing a domain name for your business. You need a memorable and easy to spell name, to consider the use of keywords or brand names, to check whether it is already registered or being used on social media, to pick the most appropriate TLD and to consider whether to register multiple TLDs. If you are looking for a domain name for your website, you can search for and register them on our Domain page.

Cloud Computing : 6 Most Common Applications

Posted on 20/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Cloud computing has become very popular for businesses. As of 2018, over three-quarters of enterprises were already using it and more are adopting it every day. If you haven’t considered it yet, that’s possibly because you’re not sure what you can use it for. To give you an idea, here we’ll show you the six main ways it is being put to good use.

1. Big Data analytics

Today’s businesses collect vast amounts of data on all manner of things: customers, operational processes, logistics, machinery health, product condition and much more. The value of that data comes from making sense of it, using it to come up with solutions to problems or discovering new opportunities. To do this, however, you’ll need to conduct Big Data analytics and this requires the use of substantial computing resources, often over short periods.

Those resources would be incredibly expensive if you had to purchase them and for much of the time would stand unused. Convincing the finance director this was the wisest use of the company’s money would be a difficult challenge. The advantage of cloud computing is that its pay-as-you-go pricing means you can access all those resources for the times you do need them but not pay for them when you don’t. This way you can carry out Big Data analytics whenever you need but do so affordably.

2. File storage

While it’s true that you can store your files in many places, what makes the cloud so appealing is that files can be accessed, edited and shared anywhere with an internet connection and this opens up a variety of opportunities for mobile working, collaboration and even improved security.

What’s more, the cloud provides high-speed, high-availability access as well as offering scalability to increase or decrease storage as demand requires – again paid for on a per-use basis.

3. Testing and development

Developing a new application or platform in-house can be an expensive and long-winded process. It involves significant spending, time and staff involvement and requires the procurement, installation and configuration of hardware. This means it takes longer to complete a project and can put your company at a disadvantage with competitors.

Cloud computing can make testing and development quicker, less expensive and less complicated. This is because there are various pre-existing and perfectly suitable cloud environments already built and ready to use out of the box.

4. Disaster recovery

Lots of companies use the cloud as the solution for their disaster recovery needs. Continuous backups of your servers in the cloud mean that you’ll no longer need to pay for a separate, redundant DR site of your own. Not only is recovery much cheaper, it’s also far quicker, ensuring your business is back online in no time at all.

5. Data backups

Traditional methods of backing up data have tended to be complicated and time-consuming, often requiring portable drives or even tapes being shipped to remote sites for storage. This is also a technique that can back-fire if the drives are too small for the data or are discovered to be defective.

Cloud-based backup is far easier to carry out and more secure. You can schedule backups to meet your needs; store them remotely on virtual servers, knowing that if the physical hardware hits a problem the data is still available; they can be encrypted for increased security and checked to make sure the data is not corrupt. And as with all cloud storage, you can have as much space as you need without fear of running out.

6. The Internet of Things

The internet of Things is beginning to transform the way we live our lives and increasing numbers of enterprises are making use of it. An IoT system works by collecting data from large numbers of connected sensors and uses this to make intelligent decisions – often using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

To take advantage of the IoT, the cloud is needed to analyse that data and make insights from it. A smart traffic system, for example, can monitor traffic conditions across an entire area, discovering where issues arise and using AI to quickly reroute or slow down vehicles in order to prevent a hold up. This kind of intervention would be almost impossible to gather without the capabilities of cloud.

Cloud’s scalability is also important for IoT. As a company grows, so might the number of IoT devices it sends and receives information from. More devices mean it will need larger computing resources and this can be achieved quickly and easily in the cloud without the need for significant capital investment.

Conclusion

Cloud enables businesses to do many things that, without it, they would find more expensive, overly time-consuming or beyond their in-house IT capabilities. From basic solutions, like storing files and backing up data, to highly sophisticated processes, such as Big Data analytics and IoT data processing, the potential of the cloud is enormous. Indeed, what we have discussed here barely scratches the surface and there are even more developments yet to come.

6 Signs That Your Website Is In Need Of An Upgrade

Posted on 19/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Nothing stands still in business and that includes a website. Trends change, new technologies are developed, search engines modify their ranking criteria and customers have ever-increasing expectations. A website that was the best thing since sliced bread when you launched it several years ago may now be due for an upgrade. Here, we’ll look at some of the signs to look out for.

1. Your site doesn’t rank well

One of the first clues that you need a website upgrade is if your site is performing less well than it did in search engine results. Search engines are forever moving the goalposts when it comes to how they rank websites and older sites often come out badly as a result. This can be because many of your earlier pages were created using now outdated SEO techniques which no longer carry much weight or, even worse, are penalised for contravening the latest webmaster guidelines.

While it is important to keep abreast of SEO trends and to update your optimisation accordingly, sometimes a complete overhaul may be what’s needed to bring your site up-to-date and to ensure all your content is fresh and relevant.

2. Your website is chaotic

One of the issues that all websites face is how to manage growth. As the years go by, you’ll make lots of changes to your site, adding pages, posts, products and other features, while removing others.

Sometimes it can be difficult to keep tabs on these changes and they can lead to a number of problems. You may end up publishing duplicate content, have links to content which is no longer there or, perhaps worst of all, having two versions of the same page but with different details, such as pricing, which can cause issues with customers. You may also have features which no longer work properly or which don’t comply with the latest legislation, such as GDPR.

If your site is getting into such a chaotic state, then it can often be better to start from scratch and create one which is better organised and where everything works as it should.

3. Outdated styling

Design trends are continually changing and although you can’t update your website every time a new fashion appears, there comes a time when it begins to look out of date. This isn’t a good thing on the internet where visual impact is so important, so, if your website is still wearing flares and sporting a kaftan, it’s probably time for a makeover.

Typical things to look out for are dated images that no longer depict the modern-day and tired looking layouts, fonts and backgrounds. Updating to something more modern will give visitors the impression that your company is forward-thinking and on point.

4. Not mobile-friendly

Google wants website owners to have a ‘mobile-first’ approach to web design, where the focus is on building the mobile site first and then adding other features for devices like tablets and computers. The reason for this is that although we do most of our browsing, around 60%, on mobile phones, many websites do not function well enough on smartphone screens.

This requires website owners to go beyond using responsive themes as even these don’t always put the needs of the mobile user first. They may render the website in a way that is readable, but often some of the functions don’t work effectively and some of the navigational features are not user-friendly for the thumb-operated screens.

With increasing numbers of people browsing and buying on smartphones, any website that doesn’t provide for these users is going to lose out and find their search engine rankings getting worse.

5. Poor user experience

Where, once, customers simply wanted the cheapest prices, today, many of them will purchase from the website that offers them the best user-experience – even if the price is a little higher. This is great news for those working with small margins but means you will need to upgrade your game when it comes to your website.

Providing a great customer experience covers all aspects of a website. It needs to be easily navigable, have detailed information (i.e. text, images, video and other content) that directly answers the questions customers have. It needs to offer users the opportunity to get quick responses, such as those offered by live chat. It will provide personalised shopping experiences and offers, swift delivery, customer reviews and additional services like wish lists or gift wrapping. It may also offer expert advice in the form of blog posts, engaging content (such as competitions) and even reward schemes for loyal customers. Importantly, a simple and quick checkout process is also needed.

6. Slow loading

Customers expect websites to load instantly, so if yours takes its time to render on their device, you may lose a lot of business. Even a one-second delay has been shown to drop conversions by 7% and up to 40% of visitors abandon a website when the landing page takes more than a couple of seconds to load. Few people are ever going to make it to the checkout if this happens on every page.

If that doesn’t encourage you to upgrade to a faster website, you also need to remember that search engines use loading times as a ranking factor. Speeding up means you’ll rank higher and get more organic traffic, whereas being slow will have the opposite effect. You should also consider moving to a faster hosting package as this, too, can dramatically speed up your site.

Conclusion

Websites are like cars. When we first get them, they are shiny, new and have all the latest features. However, after a few years, they have been superseded by shinier and newer models that have even smarter features. If the signs mentioned in this post apply to your website, then it may be time to upgrade to one which is better suited for today’s internet.

How to Develop a Successful Social Media Strategy

Posted on 18/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

When it comes to making a purchase, 75% of consumers will opt for a company they have previously liked on social media. With statistics like this, it is impossible to ignore the potential that social media has to transform your business. However, you can’t just post things willy-nilly and hope for the best; instead, you need to have a social media marketing strategy. In this post, we’ll take you through the process of creating one.

1. Define the outcomes you want to achieve

Your social media strategy needs to be linked to your company’s goals for it to have practical value for your business. For example, you may wish to expand awareness of your brand, improve online sales, increase ROI, get more customers visiting your bricks and mortar store or develop an audience of loyal followers.

When creating your social media strategy, you’ll need to decide what your objectives for it are and then set short-term goals that you know are achievable and affordable.

2. Know your audience

Understanding your audience is the key to a successful social media marketing strategy. Luckily, your research can be made easier by using some of the many analytics tools. These can give you detailed insights into the audience demographics of the various social media platforms, showing you the best platforms to use and the types of content you should post.

Once established on a platform, you can drill down and analyse the demographic data of those who follow you. This can give you a much sharper understanding of those who actually see your content and how they interact with it.

3. Focus on metrics that count

To work effectively, a social media marketing strategy should make effective use of the data it has available. However, some data is more valuable than others and you need to be selective about which metrics are going to benefit your company the most. Rather than focusing on likes and shares, it may be more useful to track the volume of users who see a post, the number of clicks-throughs your content gets, the rate of engagement (the ratio of interactions to impressions) and the sentiment of those interactions (emoji data). Overall, the metrics you choose to focus on should be able to help you understand how effectively you are achieving your outcomes.

4. Check out the competition

Discovering what works for your competitors is a useful way to help you shape your own social media strategy. You can do this simply by following them and viewing their content or by using one of the many competitor analysis tools that are now available.

What you shouldn’t do is simply imitate what your competitors are doing. Instead, look at the most interacted with types of content which your competitors post, whether that’s video, images, text, or even user-generated content, and use these to inform the creation of your own, unique content.

5. Start working on your own content

Only once you’ve set your goals, chosen your platforms, identified your key metrics and checked out how others do things well, are you ready to start creating the content to publish yourself.

There are several considerations you need to take into account here. Firstly, you’ll need to make decisions about what to publish. This will depend on the platform you have chosen, the preferences of your audience and your budget.

Video is one of the most liked and shared mediums on all social platforms, however, creating it professionally can be very costly. User-generated content, which can be created using a brand hashtag, is not only very popular, it’s often unique and saves you having to create so much content of your own – and because it’s user-generated, it can be forgiven for not being so professional. Visually stunning images have always been popular on social media and these are also useful for getting customers to click through to other content, such as blog posts or promotions on your website. Aside from the format, you must also consider what messages to post. If you over-focus on selling products, users can lose interest – almost half of users are likely to unfollow a brand whose content is consistently trying to sell them things. Instead, post on a wider range of engaging, relevant topics that promote your company without the hard sell.

6. Get the timings right

Timing is crucial to the success of your social media marketing strategy – and in a number of ways. First of all, followers will expect to see you post regularly and consistently. Not just on Tuesdays, but every Tuesday. It’s like in the old days when we used to get our favourite magazine delivered on a certain day – we looked forward to it arriving and were disappointed if it didn’t. Lack of consistency can make you lose followers.

Users will also expect you to respond to their comments or questions quickly, which is important if you want to develop meaningful relationships and networks, and essential if you are using social media for customer service. The speed of your response speaks volumes about your commitment to your audience and quick replies are a big plus for social media brand building.

Another important consideration is the time you actually post a message. Post it at the wrong time and many of your audience might be offline. By the time they are online again, it could have disappeared into the abyss of their feed, never to be seen. Luckily, you can use tools that will allow you to schedule when your posts are published so that they can be sent out at the most effective times of the day.

7. Go back and check the metrics

Finally, you should always keep an eye on your social media strategy data to see which things worked well and which things didn’t. This will stop you wasting time, effort and money on ineffective ideas and inform you which of your creatives are getting the most traction with your users. The more data you have, the better informed you will be.

Conclusion

As you can see, the process of setting up a social media marketing strategy requires forward planning and research. You’ll need to set goals, research the different platforms and their audiences, figure out the most important metrics to focus on and research your competitors before you start. Only then will you be in a position to create the right content, work out the best times to post and how quickly to respond. And remember to track the progress of your strategy throughout your campaign.

In 2020, keep an eye on these five social media trends.

Posted on 17/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

No communication channel is quite as fluid as social media. It is always evolving, continually influenced by its billions of users, and still learning the errors of its ways. It does, however, present businesses with the potential to reach out and engage with vast audiences. To take full advantage, it is always important to keep a close eye on the trends and developments that reshape the social media landscape. With this in mind, this post will look at the main trends predicted for 2020.

1. Video becomes users’ first choice format

If you are not already posting videos on your social media accounts, now might be the time to reconsider. Video is by far the most popular form of social media content and its highly engaging format makes it ideal for reaching out to large numbers of users. It is also on a rising trend that businesses shouldn’t ignore.

Indeed, video has become so popular that YouTube now ranks second amongst the search engines, only outperformed by its owner, Google. Add this to the fact that, by next year, the format will account for three quarters of all mobile traffic and it’s obvious just how crucial it is for brands which use social media to start making their own – even if it is only short, in-house productions filmed and edited on a smartphone.

2. The rise of video-sharing platforms

It’s not just video as a format that’s trending, but also video-sharing apps. While YouTube has been the dominant video-sharing platform for many years and looks likely to remain there, other video apps and networks are becoming increasingly popular and offer plenty of rewards for companies which find value in using them.

Instagram, which started out primarily as a photo-sharing app has now become increasingly video orientated, even ranking videos higher than other forms of content. This shift in emphasis has led to a huge rise in the platform’s popularity. According to influencermarketinghub.com, it is now the 2^nd biggest global social media channel and has over a billion monthly active users.

There is also a growing number of highly popular niche video channels that offer marketing potential. TikTok, for example, is an app used for creating and sharing short videos, with three quarters of a billion monthly active users, most of them millennials and younger. Vimeo is another very popular video network with a similar demographic.

3. A more caring social media

Social media can have its downsides and these come in the form of internet addiction, trolling and online bullying. The mental health issues and even suicides that result has led to increasing concern about the subject. In response, many users are spending less time on social networks; some, including a few well known public figures, have even abandoned it completely.

In 2020, any brand that posts on social media needs to be more accountable for its impact. Some companies are already making significant changes, posting less frequently and with content that is less likely to spark unhealthy disagreements between commenters. Instead of encouraging audiences to do more things online, they are, instead, trying to get them to participate more in real life – as was done by ITV’s Get Britain Talking campaign.

4. Liking is likely to go

The liking of posts is another area that has come under scrutiny for its impact on mental health. This is because when posts stop being liked, it can lead to low self-esteem and all the problems that go with it.

In order to tackle this issue, Instagram is testing the removal of its liking features and its owner, Facebook is trialling the removal too. If likes disappear, they can no longer be used as a ranking criterion, and other forms of social engagement will take precedence, such as how many commenters and comments a post gets and how many times it gets shared. In 2020, the trend will be to produce more sharable and comment-worthy content (another reason to use video) and to find ways to encourage users to comment and share – something YouTube vloggers have been doing explicitly for years.

5. Social media for customer service

Chatbots have been a common feature of business websites for a few years now but in 2020, we’ll see their increasing use on social media. These clever AI programs are designed to engage automatically when messages are received, giving users the confidence that your company is dealing immediately with their query.

Using machine learning, they respond to the keywords within questions to give the most appropriate responses and, as a result, help companies communicate with more customers, more efficiently, than they can with a human-only team. Next year, as chatbots are set to become the primary solution for customer service communication, expect to see even more companies using social media as the place to carry this out.

Conclusion

2020 promises to be a busy and exciting year in social media. We will see more video content, with businesses seeking out the growing number of niche video sharing networks. Demands for a more responsible internet will change how companies interact with their audiences, while the need for comments and sharing will push them to find better ways to engage. Finally, expect to see more brands using social media as the place to carry out customer service, relying heavily on chatbots to undertake many of the interactions.

Is It Time to Switch to a PCI-Compliant Server for Your eCommerce Store?

Posted on 16/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

If you intend to take payments for goods or services on your website, you’ll be required to comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) regulations. These are the security standards that companies which store, process or transmit payment card data have to meet. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what they are and explain why you need a PCI-compliant server.

What PCI-compliance entails

If you want your company to accept online card payments your server environment and eCommerce application have to comply with PCI DSS. This is the case even if you use a third-party payment processor. Failure to comply can have a significant impact, including ongoing fines or in the worst-case scenario, being prohibited from taking payments and thus finding your company unable to trade.

The standards you have to meet for PCI compliance are detailed and rigorous. They require you to build and maintain a secure network, protect cardholder data, maintain a vulnerability management program, implement strong access control measures, monitor and test networks on a regular basis and maintain an information security policy.

Ensuring these standards are met requires many other operations to be put into effect, such as the installation and maintenance of an appropriately configured firewall, the use of strong (non-vendor-supplied) system passwords, the encryption of cardholder data during transit, the secure storage of cardholder data and the use of anti-virus software. In addition, you’ll need to update and patch applications, restrict both system and physical access to cardholder data and create unique IDs for individual staff so that you can track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.

It is obvious from this that the PCI DSS standards are stringent and the responsibility for implementing and maintaining them, as well as evidencing compliance, falls with the eCommerce company and any third-party service providers they use.

The challenges and solutions of PCI compliance

eCommerce companies face two major challenges when striving to comply with PCI DSS regulations. Firstly, is the cost of building an in-house system that meets the standards and, secondly, they often lack the expertise to attain compliance. A solution that makes compliance easier and less expensive to achieve is to use the services of a PCI-compliant hosting provider that can offer both the server infrastructure and the necessary expertise.

At eukhost, for example, we are geared up to ensure our data centres, networks and operations are PCI DSS compliant. Aside from ensuring robust physical and system security of all our data centres, all our VPS, cloud servers and dedicated servers are PCI compliant-capable. In other words, we are able to carry out all the necessary configuration changes needed to meet PCI compliance upon request.

There are different levels of PCI compliance and the solutions put in place will depend upon the level your business is obliged to achieve. Most eCommerce sites, for example, have to meet either the SAQ A or SAQ A-EP levels. These are required for companies which process payments via a third-party payment gateway, such as Stripe or PayPal. As customers are transferred to the payment gateway to carry out these kinds of transactions, no card information is stored or transmitted by our servers. As a result, your compliance burden is dramatically reduced.

Putting the compliance process into action

To determine the exact requirements of making a server PCI compliant, your hosting vendor will need to know the application you are going to use and the level of PCI compliance you are required to meet. Here at eukhost, we carry out the following as standard:

Ensure you have a firewall enabled and have a robust firewall policy implemented.
Ensure that you have an SSL certificate installed and correct cyphers are set up.
Ensure that encryption is enforced for all services.
Disable any software which is not required to provide service.
Enable and configure intrusion prevention.
Enable an application firewall
Enable and configure anti-virus and anti-malware services.
Ensure logging and log retention policies are in place.
Apply an access and password policy.
Ensure a backup policy is in place and that backups are encrypted.

Once you have these features, plus any others you require, put into place, you will then be able to arrange for a PCI compliance assessor to undertake a compliance scan.

Remember, overall responsibility lies with the company

While a PCI DSS compliant vendor can help you comply and do so more economically, the ultimate responsibility lies with the company. Standards, such as assigning unique user IDs and maintaining an information security policy, which are carried out in-house, also have to be achieved. Furthermore, companies also need to ensure that any third-party hosting services they use also comply with the regulations.

Conclusion

PCI DSS is one of the most important regulations that an eCommerce company has to comply with. Designed to protect the consumer, it has a stringent set of requirements and is rigorously policed. One of the most effective ways to help you achieve compliance is to use the services of a hosting partner that has experience and expertise in PCI compliance and can provide the compliant server environment required.

7 Steps to Creating a Secure Website

Posted on 15/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

The sheer number of data breaches and cyberattacks that take place means that when developing a website, companies need to adopt a security mindset. Failure to do so can have disastrous consequences, including substantial fines, loss of business and reputational damage. Ensuring your website is secure means grappling with a wide range of security issues and in this post, we’ll look at ways you can overcome many of the vulnerabilities that pose a threat.

1. A comprehensive security approach

Right at the outset of the development process, there should be a disciplined approach to building a site that is end-to-end secure. This is particularly important when the site is being developed by different teams, each working on separate areas. Even if each team is working with security in mind, doing so without an understanding of what other teams are doing can result in data becoming vulnerable. To prevent this, there needs to be someone with oversight of security so that, once all the separate elements are put together, the final website remains comprehensively secure.

2. Validate all data

Not validating the data inputted by your users puts your website at risk from various, havoc-wreaking, forms of attack. These include SQL injection, cross-site scripting, command injection and other similar threats. Data validation, therefore, should be built-in to ensure all information inputted is not going to cause harm.

3. Scan your website from the outset

Scanning is fundamental to ensure your website is secure. It enables you to find previously undiscovered vulnerabilities and security holes so that you can fix them. You should scan regularly during the development process and, once launched, you should continue scanning on a daily basis and after each time you make an update to your website or system. Some web hosts will provide a website scanning service for you.

4. Update apps immediately and use clean code

Hackers send out millions of bots a day looking for websites using outdated, vulnerable applications they know they can break into. Updating your software to the latest version or applying a security patch removes these vulnerabilities and makes your site safer. Importantly, the sooner you update, the quicker you become secure. Auto-updates are the safest and most hassle-free way to do this.

To reduce the number of vulnerabilities overall, it is always good practice to delete unnecessary data, databases and software from your server.

Website developers should also make sure they do not use applications with known vulnerabilities. Older platform versions, themes, plugins, etc., should be replaced with the latest clean versions prior to being installed.

5. Use strong passwords

Everyone knows that the sophisticated software used by today’s cybercriminals makes it easy to crack weak passwords. Enabling users to keep default passwords or use weak passwords puts your company at risk of attack. For this reason, there’s no excuse not to enforce strong passwords on your site. Indeed, implementing two-factor authentication where, for example, a code is sent to the user’s phone, can make security significantly tighter. And as virtually everyone has a mobile phone these days, such methods of authentication shouldn’t be too much of a burden on your users.

6. Rigorous permissions management

The issue with weak passwords is exacerbated when administrator permissions and privileges are not well managed. If these are given to non-essential users and third-parties, the website becomes increasingly vulnerable to attack. Organisations need to have a clear policy in place about how permissions are managed and this should include precautions which ensure that the higher the level of privilege a user has, the stronger their authentication process needs to be.

7. Encrypt your data

If you store personal data about your users, the best way to keep it secure is to encrypt it. This way, even if your database is breached and the information stolen, the hackers won’t be able to access it. If you sell directly from your website, you should also encrypt the user’s financial data while it is in transit from their browser to your site. This prevents it from being stolen on-route. You can do this by installing an SSL certificate.

Conclusion

Security is essential for all websites in order to protect your company and your users from today’s sophisticated cybercriminals. To make your website secure, you need to put things in place during its development, rather than bolting them on at the end of the process. Hopefully, the points raised in this post will help you develop a secure site of your own.

1. Data-informed strategies

2. Mobile-first websites

3. The customer-experience

4. Omnichannel marketing content

5. Building trust

6. The rise of augmented reality

Conclusion

Managed hosting – the basics

Range of managed hosting services

Versatile uses of managed hosting

Aspects of managed hosting to consider

Conclusion

1. Cloud users save money

2. Instant scalability

3. Speedy application deployment

4. 100% uptime

5. Latest technologies, exceptional performance

6. Increased security

7. Organisational transformation from working online

8. Do more with technology

Conclusion

1. Getting the basics right

2. Keyword names versus brand names

3. Finding your ideal domain name is already taken

4. Finding your ideal domain name is being used on social media

5. Choosing the right domain extension

6. Registering multiple extensions

Conclusion

1. Big Data analytics

2. File storage

3. Testing and development

4. Disaster recovery

5. Data backups

6. The Internet of Things

Conclusion

1. Your site doesn’t rank well

2. Your website is chaotic

3. Outdated styling

4. Not mobile-friendly

5. Poor user experience

6. Slow loading

Conclusion

1. Define the outcomes you want to achieve

2. Know your audience

3. Focus on metrics that count

4. Check out the competition

5. Start working on your own content

6. Get the timings right

7. Go back and check the metrics

Conclusion

1. Video becomes users’ first choice format

2. The rise of video-sharing platforms

3. A more caring social media

4. Liking is likely to go

5. Social media for customer service

Conclusion

What PCI-compliance entails

The challenges and solutions of PCI compliance

Putting the compliance process into action

Remember, overall responsibility lies with the company

Conclusion

1. A comprehensive security approach

2. Validate all data

3. Scan your website from the outset

4. Update apps immediately and use clean code

5. Use strong passwords

6. Rigorous permissions management

7. Encrypt your data

Conclusion

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