According to statista.com, 58% of all emails sent during the first months of 2017, were spam. With such a high percentage, it’s no surprise that service providers are doing everything they can to filter it out, otherwise, our inboxes would be swamped. Unfortunately, amongst all the junk that does get caught, quite a lot of genuine emails get filtered out too. If your emails are getting mistaken for junk, this post will explain why and show you six ways you can stop it.
Why are my emails getting filtered?
Service providers use sophisticated software to filter out spam emails. The programs they use look for a wide range of tell-tale signs that indicate when an email is not from a legitimate sender. For your email to end up in the spam folder, there must be something about it that has alerted the software and triggered it to act. To prevent this from happening, you have to make changes to your emails so that they no longer get flagged.
Here are the six main ways you can do this:
1. Make sure your emails comply with the UK and international laws
If you are a business sending a marketing email through UK based email servers, you must comply with UK law. To do this, all emails should provide the following information in the actual email (i.e. not via a link):
Your company’s name (registered name and company number if a limited company)
Your business address (or registered office)
Country of company registration (e.g. Scotland or England & Wales)
In addition, you should inform the recipient how to unsubscribe and provide an unsubscribe link.
If you are sending an email using a US email server (many UK hosts use US-based servers, as do companies such as MailChimp, etc.) you must also comply with the US CAN-SPAM Act.
If you don’t comply with these legal obligations, it is quite likely that the spam filters used by these email servers will think your emails are spam. They are configured to check that company names, addresses, unsubscribe links, etc., are included in marketing emails.
2. Don’t include text that might be confused for spam
Every time a spam or phishing email is caught, its content is analyzed. This has made it possible to create a database of regularly used words and phrases which help identify other spam emails.
If the wording of your emails has several of these phrases included, it could be the reason it gets junked. Check out this list of 200 common spam words from Comm100.
3. Check your email before sending
If you are going to send out a batch of marketing emails, one way to make sure they will end up in the recipients inbox is to use an outgoing spam checker, such as ISnotSPAM. These free to use online checkers will analyze your outgoing emails and report back to you any possible problems that may get your email junked. This gives you the opportunity to make changes before pressing the send button.
ISnotSPAM, for example, provides the following checks:
There are a number of ways your email address could get blacklisted. One way is that a previous email may have been mistakenly identified as spam. Another is that a recipient has flagged your email using the ‘report as spam’ option; and finally, your host’s email server could have been reported for send spam from other customers.
If you have been blacklisted by one email service provider for any of these reasons, it is likely that they will have communicated this to other service providers too. In which case, all of your emails may get filtered out.
The best way to prevent this is to ensure your hosting provider offers outgoing spam filtering and email server blacklist checking. At Anteelo, for example, our business and enterprise email hosting checks all your outgoing mail to prevent you from sending spam and pro-actively checks blacklists every 24 hours. If you are incorrectly blacklisted, we’ll submit requests to have the issue fixed.
5. Don’t send emails to spam trap addresses
It is illegal to send emails to people who have not opted in. Spammers, however, have no regard for this law and will send emails to every address they can. One way that legitimate companies can fall foul of this is by unwittingly sending emails to what are known as spam trap addresses.
Spam traps are fake email addresses created to catch spammers out. They are published in a way that fools automated e-mail address harvesters, used by spammers, to collect them. As they are fake, it is obvious that anyone who sends an email to them does not comply with the opt-in law. If an email is sent to one of these addresses, therefore, the sender is blacklisted.
It is highly unlikely that you will be able to send an email to one of these addresses unless you buy or rent an email list from a third party. If you do buy or rent these lists, you need to make sure that the company you receive the list from is reputable – i.e. that all the recipients on the list have agreed to receive marketing emails from third parties.
6. Avoid sending attachments that raise red flags
We all send attachments from time to time, especially things like images and documents. However, some file types can raise issues, particularly those which are likely to contain malware. If possible, try to avoid sending files such as .exe, .swf, and even zipped files that might try to conceal hidden malware.
Conclusion
Having your emails filtered out by your recipient’s email server can cause serious problems for your business. Marketing campaigns can fail, invoices go missing and even basic email opt-in verification fails to happen. It can be frustrating and very costly. Hopefully, the information provided here will help you to better understand why your email gets filtered out and show you what to do to make sure it arrives safely in the future.’
Thinking of setting up an eCommerce business? With software such as WordPress, it’s possible to build an eCommerce site and get it online in no time. However, while getting your website up and running is fairly easy, turning it into a long-term, successful business is much more challenging. In this post, we’ll show you six important tips to help you grow your fledgling store into a thriving eCommerce business.
1. Choose products you know will sell
This sounds like obvious advice, but its aim is to draw a distinction between what you think will sell and what you know does sell. If you want to create a successful business, you should focus on products that have a proven track record and sell them whilst they remain popular.
One way to identify trending products is to see how well they perform on social media. If they are getting lots of likes on Facebook or mentions on Twitter, then it is a clear signal that people are interested in them. Also, check out the reviews on the sites of other retailers. If there are lots of recent, positive reviews, this is another indicator that a product is very popular at the moment. Finally, search for the products on Google Trends, this will show you how many people have searched for them over time and give a forecast for the near future. Do remember that some products have much longer lifecycles than others. Some may be hot property for years, others may last just a few months. You don’t want to invest in a stock just as it goes out of fashion.
At the end of the day, finding the right products is down to researching the market. Understand what sells and you have much more chance of becoming successful.
2. Use established eCommerce techniques and tweak them to your own needs
There’s an established formula for online selling that has been honed and updated by many successful businesses over the years. Companies use it because it has been proven to work. Rather than dive in blindfolded, take the time to discover that formula and find out how you can shape it for your own business. You’ll need to look at a wide range of different variables, such as the products you sell and where you source them, how you advertise, the way you optimise your landing page, and how you can increase your customer lifetime value.
Through experimentation and analyses, you’ll eventually find which techniques bring you the best rewards.
3. Create a site that inspires trust
With so many dodgy websites around, you need to build a store that your visitors will find trustworthy – this is especially true for fledgling brands that people are discovering for the first time. One thing you’ll definitely need is an SSL certificate which will guarantee that customers payment details are encrypted and earn you the prized ‘green padlock’ secure icon on the Google address bar.
In addition, offering money-back guarantees, free delivery and live chat are other ways to inspire confidence.
A websites design is also important. You want a theme that matches both your brand and the products you are selling. Customers have expectations of what reputable sites look like, so It is worthwhile checking out what your successful competitors do before designing your own site.
4. Test your ad to find the best ROI
The best way to make sure that your ads have the biggest impact is to test them. Not only should you test different ads, but you should also test them on different audiences. This will give you a much clearer understanding of where to invest your money and your time in order to get the biggest return.
If one ad becomes especially successful, then you can replicate it and scale it to make even more sales. However, remember to do so in increments so that you use your budget wisely.
Three good tips for internet ads include using creative language that can inspire others to share on social media; employing scarcity techniques, such as ‘whilst stocks last’; and offering quantity incentives, ‘buy one, get a second half price’ etc.
By far the best way to advertise and one that has the biggest ROI is using email marketing. However, to do this successfully, you need to get as many people as possible to subscribe to your emails or your newsletter.
5. Ensure you have great customer support
To increase sales, improve customer satisfaction and earn great online reviews, it is absolutely vital to offer top-rated customer service. And for online stores where customers can shop at any hour of the day, ideally, this needs to be offered 24/7.
One of the best ways you can do this is through live chat. This can help customers with product buying decisions and assist with issues that arise once the product has left the warehouse. It’s good for the brand’s reputation and inspires return custom, meaning increased customer lifetime value.
6. Reinforce your site with great hosting
Never underestimate the importance of good web hosting when it comes to having a successful eCommerce business. Good hosting can ensure your website is always available, that it loads quickly for your customers and that their data is secure. It protects you from hacking and malware, provides backups for quick disaster recovery, and offers you the computing capacity to cope with spikes in traffic during busy periods.
Your business relies on the effectiveness of your hosting. Without great hosting, you cannot guarantee that your site will perform the way you need it to.
Conclusion
eCommerce sites are not automatic money-making machines. Building them is fairly simple to do, turning them into a successful business takes a lot of research and hard work. Hopefully, the six tips in this post will give you a better understanding of how to make a success out of your own site.
Homepages are unique to any website. They serve as both an online reception area and as a navigational hub for visitors wanting to find information about your company, its products and services. The key to getting more traffic, however, is improving how your homepage ranks in search engine results and here, we’ll explain how you can do this.
Distilling your USP
When ranking your homepage, search engines will use its content to understand what the page is about. Unlike other pages that can talk specifics about your products and services, the homepage’s job is to distil what is unique about your business and put it in a nutshell. This means making your unique selling point (USP) the central theme of your homepage. Although you should include information about your products and services, with links to them, promoting your USP is the homepage’s most vital task.
Getting the USP right takes some work, It has to define not just what makes your business unique’ but why it is the best choice for your customers. Don’t just tell them you are an independent financial advisor or a local estate agent, tell them the benefits of being independent or local.
Essentially, a good USP is like a mini blog post. It should succinctly show that you understand the customers’ problems and explain how your company is best placed to solve them.
Getting your keywords right
With the homepage being the navigation hub of a website, many believe it needs to contain the keywords for all their products and services. Some will even list everything they sell or offer in an attempt to do that. Overdoing this, however, can be misguided and backfire.
Every page on a website should have a focus keyword and no two pages should use the same one. If you have a landing page for selling shoes, for example, you don’t really want your homepage competing with this page. Though there is value in mentioning shoes on your homepage if they are one of your main products, multiple keywords relating to shoes should, ideally, be reserved for the shoe page.
Indeed, if a homepage is little more than a list of products and services, it doesn’t necessarily come across as useful to your customers. Search engines today are sophisticated enough to understand this. Instead, they are looking for user-friendly information about your USP and what visitors can find on the rest of the site, including your main products and services. Any keywords used should be within the headings and text and primarily for the benefit of the visitor, not the search engines.
A company visitors can trust
If search engines direct users to the websites of untrustworthy businesses, people will stop using them. To avoid this, search engines go beyond filtering out the dodgy websites of scammers and cybercriminals. Today, their algorithms analyse a wide range of trust factors to determine whether your site and your business should be listed in results.
On a technical level, they will look to see if your site has an SSL certificate, reliable hosting, quick loading and response times and a lack of broken links and 404 error pages. They will even analyse the links you point customers to, in order to make sure you don’t send them on to other untrustworthy sites.
They will also look at other information, such as user reviews and star ratings. Indeed, one of the reasons they have listing services like Google My Business is so they can verify the legitimacy of a business and gauge what the public think of it.
A homepage can also play a vital role in promoting the company’s and the website’s trustworthiness. Displaying company and VAT registration details, accreditations, qualifications, memberships of recognised organisations, customer testimonials and reviews, etc., help both the search engine and customer gain trust in you. The perfect place for these is on your homepage as this is the first page that visitors and search engines visit.
A homepage designed for the visitor
As mentioned earlier, the homepage is the navigational hub of the website and search engines will analyse how well it serves this purpose. Does it have clear information, helpfully organised with headings, images, easily readable text and links? Is it easy to navigate from the homepage using menus, search bars, category lists, etc.? Is it user-friendly on mobile devices and provide assistance for people with accessibility needs?
All these factors need to be considered when optimising your homepage.
Conclusion
To improve your homepage SEO, you need to provide what search engines want – and that is a focus on the user, not the search engines themselves. This means your homepage should display your USP, describe the main areas of the site and help people get there easily, and provide evidence of your trustworthiness. While you should place keywords where they are useful and needed, they should not be the focus of your homepage content.
Regardless of how well paying your job might be, finding the best side business thoughts and in the end turning out to be completely financially independent is significantly important than incredible compensation and strong advantages. Picking the way of being an entrepreneur, and taking a shot at discovering extraordinary business thoughts, is unquestionably more hazardous than being content with holding a 9-5 employment. It requires far more penance. Be that as it may, when you’re receiving the lifestyle rewards of working for yourself and hustling your way into getting fundamentally more cash with your business thoughts than you ever could at your normal everyday job, the difficult work will have all been justified, despite all the trouble. In this way, let’s talk about some trending startup ideas for 2020.
Top Startup Business Ideas
You can now start a business from scratch without investing a lot of money. Following are the best startup ideas for businesses in 2020:
Plastic Recycling or Alternatives
What if you can build a big business and save your environment at the same time. Sounds impossible, right?
But it is possible with the Plastic Recycling business. “Rethinking Plastic” has become a global consumer trend for the year 2019. Businesses that help people in lowering plastic waste find it easy to strike cords in their hearts.
You can recycle any plastic material or offer its alternative at competitive prices so that a consumer prefers to buy your product over the old fashioned plastic one.
For example, you can recycle plastic straws to make a lot of appealing decorative items. Plastic Recycling business requires less investment but will give you good returns.
According to the report from Statista, the value of the recycled plastic market will amount to nearly $57 billion all over the world in 2024.
Buy and Resell Used Goods
If you are someone who loves sales, flea markets or local auctions, then it can be a great startup idea for you.
You can buy antiques, art pieces, collectables, retro clothes, and furniture, etc. at low prices and resell them at higher prices to the respective market at much higher prices.
But if you want to grow your business, then you have to become an expert on the value of goods and the right place to sell them.
According to threadUP, the secondhand economy (a $24 billion market in 2018) is projected to grow to hit a staggering number of $64 billion within the next 10 years.
Senior care services rank as one of the best Startup Ideas for Businesses in 2019. Although seniors are expected to live longer lives as compared to previous generations, unfortunately, it is not valid. They are expected to spend more time in hospitals, daycare or sickness.
Fortunately, they are wealthy and can afford to pay for the services required to maintain their lifestyles. This includes continuing to live at home in their communities. According to research by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), nearly 90% of seniors want to live at home near their friends and family.
Many affluent seniors suffer from various health issues and find it challenging to drive and perform household chores such as cleaning, cooking or caring for their pets.
Therefore, plenty of opportunities exist for entrepreneurs who wish to start their own business from scratch.
Senior Care Services
Not all senior citizens are taken care of by loved ones and a significant number of them could utilize companionship and care-taking services all the time. At this age, senior citizens feel very vulnerable and regularly need to stay at home yet may require help because of handicap or action limitations. In the event that you’re passionate about this, this could be a considerable business idea for you.
Senior care services rank as one of the most trending Startup Ideas in 2020. Although seniors are expected to live longer lives as compared to previous generations, unfortunately, it is not completely true. They are expected to spend more time in hospitals, daycare or sickness. Which would affect their physical as well as mental health?
Home or Office Renovations
If you love construction and enjoy turning people’s dreams into reality, then Home Renovation business will suit you the best.
Almost everyone nowadays wants to renovate their homes or offices, but it is tough to find good contractors. It is a type of business that will do well even in the worst economic conditions.
According to Statista, an average homeowner in the US spends $3000 per year on home improvements. One of the most significant advantages of renovation business is that it requires less capital investment in tools and equipment than new construction. It is a perfect choice for individuals looking for a home-based business.
Virtual Reality
If you are tech-savvy and love to experiment, then Virtual Reality is the perfect start-up idea for you. Hardware and software vendors are working profusely to introduce new VR products in the market, and it is estimated to become a $40 billion market by 2020.
There are unlimited uses of Virtual Reality for either business or personal enjoyment. Real estate market is a great example.
Providing a virtual tour of an advertised house to a potential buyer can help in closing the deal. Hence, it can be a massive market for your Virtual Reality business to target on.
Some other examples include- 3D movies, gaming, social media, training and meditation. Even the trend of VR lounges is also growing on a rapid scale.
Meal Kit and Delivery
How many times have you ordered food online in the past week or month?
Whatever the number is, it must be higher than the number of times you have gone out to eat?
Yes.
Customized Healthy Meals delivery is becoming more popular day by day as people don’t have the time to shop and prepare healthy meals at home. It has already become a billion-dollar industry on its own.
The primary purpose of this start-up business is to make sure people get to eat healthy and fresh food whenever and wherever they want. If you enjoy cooking or love to bring a positive change in others’ lives, then meal kit delivery business will be the best for you.
Digital Detox
In today’s digital world it has become nearly impossible to stay away from modern gadgets. Life has begun revolving around smartphones and taken a toll on people’s health and lifestyle. The initial step towards coming out of this addiction is to accept that we are addicted to digital temptations. Luckily, countless individuals are attempting to detach and decrease their screen time. It has gotten well known to such a degree, that on the off chance that you look for the term Digital Detox on Google, you will get around 101 million outcomes. The year 2020 will be the time of advanced detox, and consequently, there are a lot of chances for new companies/organizations to assist individuals with eliminating screen time. For instance, a few new companies arrange a bunch venture out occasions to remove individuals from gadgets and find new encounters.
Luxury Pet Care
This year we’re seeing extravagance in pet care, which is basically childcare or providing a better and healthy lifestyle for pets. Regardless of whether that is taking pooches for strolls in the open country, offering a rich settlement for felines while individuals leave or throughout the day dog-sitting services in a customized setting, many pet guardians presently need these services for their adored hairy little companions. Owners need the best services and care for their pets, and they couldn’t care less about the amount they need to spend on this. From dog-keeping to premium pet care organizations, there is a huge requirement for growing business people who love furry friends and can fulfil owners high expectations. It is a sort of childcare administration for pets.
Inclusive Beauty
Gone are the days, when the market was flooded with make-up products for mainly 2 types of skin colour-Fair and Dark. Many international brands and models within the beauty industry such as CoverGirl, Missguided and Rihanna, have realised the importance of making beauty or skincare products for people with different gender, age, colour and race.
This type of industry is still quite nascent and hence offer a golden opportunity to aspiring beauty startups and beauty entrepreneurs.
Whether you want to start your make-up brand line for men or women of all colours, you can also begin to your vlogging channel to help women get their make-up perfect.
Internet of Things Security
Various difficulties forestall the verifying of IoT gadgets and guaranteeing start to finish security in an IoT situation. Since systems administration appliances and different objectives are moderately new, security has not generally been viewed as top need during an item’s plan stage. Moreover, on the grounds that IoT is an early market, numerous product designers and makers are progressively keen on getting their items to showcase rapidly, instead of finding a way to assemble security in from the beginning.
Event Planning
One of the primary things you have to do is visit each potential area in which you intend to work. Work with the marketing manager to visit each site and realize what is accessible in every area. Start a database that will permit you to sort settings by differing highlights, for example, the number of individuals each site holds, AV hardware accessible on location, on the off chance that you should organize rental seats, and so on. At that point when you are starting to plan an event with a customer, you can discover what the key parameters are for the occasion and effectively pull up the three or four locales that meet the essential criteria. also, engagement parties, etc.
Vocational Consultant
On the off chance that you are leaving a corporate job with a decent understanding to begin your very own endeavour yet have no clue where to start, this one might be for you. There are a few people out there who need to figure out how to excel at a promotion interview or request for a raise, or just land a lucrative occupation. On the off chance that you have valuable tips for them, you can simply begin your very own consultancy and individuals will pay you great bucks to gain proficiency with the subtle strategies. In the event that you aren’t prepared to fire up your very own site or simply need to try out the waters, you should see joining to platforms such as The Muse or Coach Me where others are searching for individuals like you to guide them.
Web designing
Web designing services have become a key piece of the market and have developed as the need of great importance. The main venture required in this business is a PC, internet connection, and significant aptitudes. An occupation as a website designer includes web organizing and content creation. You can complete this duty all the more easily when you are outfitted with the data, ability, and involvement with this area. You can likewise work from home as a freelance website designer.
So there you have it, 12 startup ideas that can help you get big bucks in your pocket. Most of us don’t have the advantage of having the option to leave our day job to seek after beginning a business idea today, without stressing over how we’re going to meet our money related commitments pushing ahead with no salary. That is the reason were an immense backer of continually beginning a side business while working all day, with the goal that you can test your way into your new product or services, get input, approve the thought, and start creating pay before you quit your day job. On the off chance that you can ace the craft of scaling one of these business thoughts while keeping your normal everyday employment, you’ll experience no difficulty succeeding once you’re completely independently employed. With such an extensive range of choices that span across different market segments, you should hopefully be able to find your next startup idea and transform it into a money-making machine.
CONCLUSION
The market is bursting with opportunities for tailored security solutions. So, gear up for your new and exciting startup journey. You can also go out and meet people and take advice from other entrepreneurs, but ultimately, you have to decide which business idea fits your budget and aspirations. And, if you still find yourself stuck or want to build your business idea, then Anteelo can help.
While all websites need to protect themselves from hacking and infection, eCommerce website that carry out online transactions and collect customers’ financial and personal details need to take extra special care. In this post, we’ll show you some essential tips to keep your online store safe.
1. Use a secure eCommerce platform
All website platforms have their strengths and weaknesses but some are more secure than others or have security plugins that can make them more robust. Magento is a CMS specially designed for eCommerce website and with security features built around the needs of online stores. WordPress, the world’s leading CMS, has numerous plugins you can use to keep the site secure, including the well-established and respected Wordfence and Sucuri.
These defences can protect your site against a range of threats including malware infection, SQL injections, Denial of Service attacks, cross-site scripting and zero-day exploits.
2. Make sure you scan for malware
Most web hosts offer a malware scanning service that detects and prevents the various types of malware infecting your files. Using such services can prevent these stealthy programs carrying out their malicious activities, such as ransoming your site, stealing your data, infecting your users’ computers and so forth. Ideally, choose a service that will notify you immediately if an infection has been found.
3. Install SSL certificates
SSL is essential to online stores, as most payment gateways won’t allow you to undertake financial transactions on your site without it. Essentially, installing an SSL certificate enables the encryption of financial data as it is sent from the customer’s browser to your server, thus preventing it being stolen during the checkout process.
With an SSL certificate installed, your web address changes from ‘HTTP’ to ‘HTTPS’ (S standing for Secure) and this enables search engines to put a green padlock icon in your visitors’ browser, increasing the likelihood that they will trust and buy from you. It also increases your chances of ranking higher.
4. Better management of customer data
Customer data is valuable to hackers as they use it to steal from people or sell it on the dark web to other criminals. If you collect customer data, this means you are a target for hackers. That said, a criminal can’t take information if you haven’t got it. The first rule of managing customer data, therefore, is to only collect the information you actually need. If that information can be taken anonymously, so it cannot be linked to individual users, even better. Encrypting data, such as with the SSL certificates mentioned above, also makes it more secure. Finally, consider where you store your personal data. If it is stored along with your website files it is more vulnerable than being stored remotely, perhaps in the same place where you would keep your remote backups.
5. Enforce strong passwords or use 2-step authentication
While strong passwords can be a pain to use and two step-authentication makes signing in take longer to do, both of them massively reduce the chances that you, your employees or your customers will fall foul of a brute-force attack.
As modern computers and phones securely store strong passwords for you, so that people don’t even have to know what they are, there is really no excuse for not using these measures.
6. Train your employees in security
Unwittingly, employees are a major cause of cybersecurity breaches. Using weak passwords, clicking on links in infected emails and sending valuable information to fake emails that pretend to come from their bosses are all common ways for eCommerce website to get caught out.
One simple solution is to train your employees so they know what the threats are and how to stop them. You can also put essential good practice into your IT policy to ensure that your staff know they are obliged to follow the rules you set.
7. Use authentic plugins and themes
There are tens of thousands of themes and plugins available for the various CMS platforms and these can be obtained from a variety of online sources. Not all of them, however, are guaranteed to be secure. It wouldn’t take very long for a criminal organisation to develop a theme or plugin with a built-in virus or spyware and make it available on a third-party website as a legitimate piece of software. Indeed, such a theme or plugin could function perfectly without you knowing it was infected.
To protect yourself, always use software from reputable sources and from a verified developer. The safest place is from the website of the actual CMS, such as installing a theme directly from the WordPress Repository. That’s not to say that there aren’t any reputable third-party developers, there are. You just need to be careful.
8. Monitor website activity for threats
Website monitoring can spot risks and help you to stop attacks. It can, for example, tell you if someone is making too many failed login attempts, a clear sign that there may be a brute force attack taking place. It can indicate if people are trying to log in from countries that you wouldn’t expect your visitors to come from or if they are using usernames which they shouldn’t be using, such as ‘Admin’. Monitoring can also discover the initial signs of a DDoS attack and put a stop to it before it takes your site offline.
9. Ensure software is updated as soon as possible
Cybercriminals intentionally search the internet looking for eCommerce website that run vulnerable software. Luckily, most developers will issue an update or a patch to fix a vulnerability as soon as it is discovered. Any website that uses automatic updates or which manually updates as soon as a patch is released is immediately protected once the new version is installed. It is those websites that delay updating that leave themselves wide open to attack. In essence, its no different to leaving a shop unlocked overnight when you know there’s a burglar working in the area.
10. Use remote backups
60% of companies that experience a cyberattack go bust within 6 months. For many, the reason for going under is that it takes too long to recover. Losing their website files, content, customer data and sales orders means it would take months of work to get back online, by which point, the company is no longer viable.
Quite simply, by taking regular, up-to-date backups and storing them remotely, such disasters don’t need to happen. If your site goes down, whether from a cyberattack or any other reason, a backup means it can be restored very quickly and your business can be back online in no time.
Conclusion
As an eCommerce website , it is crucial that you keep your website as secure as a traditional retailer would their bricks and mortar store. Hopefully, the ten tips we have raised here will provide comprehensive guidance on how to prevent your online store suffering from a cyberattack and, should the worst happen, show you how to recover quickly enough to keep your business from going under.
The online market has radically transformed and businesses need to move with the times if they are going to stay relevant and competitive. In this post, we’ll look at the impact of sustainability and customer experience and explain what you need to do to stay ahead of the game.
The sustainable business
Consumers worldwide are becoming increasingly conscious of how their actions have an impact on the environment and society. This affects their choice of brands and the products and services they buy. Ideally, they would like their favourite brands to adopt more ethical approaches to the environment and society, but if not, they are prepared to find new brands whose values better align with their own.
What does this mean for online businesses? First, it means that companies need to be ethical. They have to try and reduce their impact on the environment by cutting carbon emissions, using sustainable resources, ditching single-use plastics and anything else that improves the natural world. At the same time, they will need to implement socially ethical policies: delivering diversity and equality of opportunity, paying fair wages and treating staff, customers and suppliers well.
Of course, ethical businesses should also communicate this to consumers. Getting the message out is important to remind existing customers and to inform potential new ones of the efforts they are making to be a sustainable and ethical business. This should be clearly communicated on websites, in blog posts, on social media and on other forms of communication.
What’s more, consumers expect responsible brands to apologise for and make amends for both historical and more recent mistakes. One of the UK’s major pub chains has recently been commended for apologising for one of its founders profiting from the slave trade and more recently has renamed pubs whose original names might be seen to be racially offensive. Such acts of contrition that show a clean break with the past and a desire to move forward more ethically have helped consumers see the business in a more positive light.
With 87% of consumers having a more positive view of companies that support social or environmental issues, sustainability has become an important battleground on which companies compete for new business. To be a successful online business in 2021, this is an area that calls out for development, not just for the sake of the business, but for the planet and society as a whole.
Customer experience
The other key area of competition is customer experience and for online businesses, this is often driven by the adoption of new technologies. In the digital marketplace, customer experience has real value for consumers: over 80% of them are prepared to pay more for products and services if the experience is great.
What do we mean by great customer experience? Today, it means 24/7 accessibility, speed, convenience and seamlessness. Customers expect personalisation, omnichannel shopping and omnichannel communications. They want presenting with the products and offers they are looking for, purchasing to be easy and delivery to be ultra-quick. What’s more, they want to be able to buy on any device (and in-store), have communications delivered via their channel of choice and they want the whole experience to be engaging and rewarding.
It’s a big ask – but one which many companies have already adopted and are benefitting from. Implementing digital transformation today will not put companies head of the field, but it will ensure they stay relevant to the modern consumer and help them catch up with and compete with their rivals.
It’s almost impossible to offer great customer service today without adopting cloud technology. The cloud is needed to analyse the data essential for generating customer journey maps, without which it’s impossible to offer truly personalised product recommendations or provide seamless experiences. It’s also needed to carry out data analytics to gain insights into new opportunities and ways to cut costs.
The cloud is also vital for making use of technologies such as AI, machine learning and automation, that help deliver improved customer experience. It lets companies deploy 24/7 website chatbots, send instantaneous automated messages via multiple channels, maintain control of inventory and delivery so that products remain in stock and arrive quickly.
The cloud also provides the ability to integrate various key services, such as websites, apps, social media channels, communications channels, in-store services, marketing services, production infrastructure and more.
Of course, the cloud is also the most cost-effective way to run all these services. There’s no need to purchase hardware, it provides the flexibility to scale up or down resources in line with demand, there are fewer security and IT management demands and businesses will be assured their apps remain available at all times.
Conclusion
In the 2021 marketplace, sustainability and customer experience have become the main areas on which businesses compete. These have become more important to consumers than price or products. To stay relevant, online businesses need to be more environmentally-friendly, socially ethical and deliver better customer experience. This may mean a shift in direction for the company and in how it markets itself. With customer experience, it also requires digital transformation and the adoption of cloud technology.
Changes in the way consumers behave mean customer experience (CX) is now the major battleground over which businesses compete. While this will affect your company directly, in the sense that you’ll need to improve CX to stay competitive, from May 2021, you’ll also need to improve the CX of your website to rank well with Google. Under pressure to improve their own CX, Google has now decided to add ‘page experience’ as one of its ranking criteria. Here, we’ll look at what this will mean for your website and individual web pages.
1. Largest Contentful Paint
How will Google measure loading times going forward? One of the main ways will be the ‘Largest Contentful Paint’ metric. Basically, rather than looking at the loading time of a whole page, it will look specifically at the loading time of the largest element of that page, usually the largest block of text or image. With Google expecting these to load in less than 2.5 seconds, it means you will need to optimise images and break large sections of text into smaller chunks.
2. First Input Delay
While Largest Contentful Paint looks at loading times, First Input Delay focuses on response times, in other words, the time it takes your website to respond to any user interaction, such as carrying out a search, clicking a link or inputting information. The response time is a measure of how long it takes the user’s browser to start processing your website’s response to those interactions. With Google expecting this to be less than 100 milliseconds, not only is the speed of your hosting important, so too is the location of your server. To overcome latency, having servers located nearer the user will speed things up. For customers further away, websites might need to make increasing use of content delivery networks (CDNs).
3. Cumulative Layout Shift
As websites load the elements of a page in stages, it can cause the layout to shift slightly. A common problem is when a user sees a menu, goes to click on it and by the time they have done so, the menu has been pushed down by an advert or privacy banner and they click on this by accident.
Cumulative Layout Shift is a metric that measures the visual stability of a page, looking at how it changes layout during loading and how this impacts the experience of a user. In future, website owners will need to minimise this as much as possible, especially in the ‘above the fold’ layout.
4. The mobile experience
The mobile experience is the area where Google has to put most of its effort. Today, we carry out the majority of our internet searches and spend most of our online time on smartphones. The key difference between desktop and mobile for Google is that with a desktop, we predominantly use Google to find things; on mobiles, much more time is spent on apps. Google needs to claw back some of its lost ground by making its mobile search just as smooth and seamless as using an app.
While Google has got things working effectively at its end, the Achille’s heel in its mobile customer experience is the websites it displays in its search results. What’s the point of having the world’s most advanced search engine if half of the websites that users visit don’t work well on mobile devices? The solution is simple, it will stop ranking websites that are not mobile-friendly, at least on searches carried out on mobile devices – which is most of them!
The solution is a mobile-first website design. Instead of creating a website for computers and then using a responsive theme to convert it for mobile devices, work the other way around. Create the site specifically for mobiles first (the biggest audience). This will improve the way a site looks and responds on mobile devices and prevent common issues that can occur with responsive themes such as text being too small and links or buttons being so close together that users frequently tap the wrong one.
Loading speed also has to be improved on mobiles. While laptops generally connect only to broadband, smartphones are taken everywhere, often where connections, both network and wi-fi, vary in strength and stability. Regardless of connection strength, a good website should still load quickly.
5. SSL, safe browsing and intrusive interstitials
Other key ranking factors to be aware of are the installation of SSL certificates to provide secure HTTPS connections and encrypt the sending and receiving of payment data; ensuring your website is free from malware and links to malicious websites; and the removal of ‘intrusive interstitials’, the jargon term for popups and other intrusions that affect the users’ browsing experience.
Conclusion
From May 2021, Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift will become ‘core web vitals’ in Google’s algorithm. At the same time, there will be increased importance on mobile-friendliness and security and far less tolerance of intrusive features, like popups.
Whether you use shared hosting, VPS, a dedicated server or the cloud, when it comes to hosting your website or other applications, your choice of operating system (OS) boils down to either Linux or Windows. Which you choose depends on the needs of your business, the applications you wish to run, your technical expertise and your budget. In this post, we’ll take a look at both OS to see their advantages and disadvantages.
The Windows Server operating system
With Windows, you know you are getting an operating system created by the world’s leading software company, Microsoft. However, as a proprietary software with professional support, it comes with a cost. Linux, on the other hand, which is open-source and community-developed, is free.
Relatively simple to set up, Windows is more or less a complete solution, offering the flexibility of remote desktop access with the intuitive user-friendliness of a graphical user interface. Additionally, and unlike Linux, it provides this without the need to undertake command-line programming.
Those companies using other Microsoft software, such as Office 365, find obvious advantages in using Windows, as the native OS is fully compatible, out of the box, with other Microsoft applications. The same goes for using Microsoft SQL databases. Indeed, these are incompatible with Linux unless you use a Windows emulator – and to do this you would still need to buy the Windows OS and the database software. As this is the case, it can make more sense for Microsoft SQL users to stick with Windows.
Similarly, Windows is the solution for those organisations that need to use scripting frameworks, such as ASP and ASP.NET, as the embedded scripts in an ASP can only run on Windows servers. Linux is unable to processes these scripts before a user’s page can load.
The Linux operating system
Linux benefits considerably from being open-source and this has enabled several operating system distributions to be developed, including Fedora, Ubuntu and CentOS. Additionally, and unlike Windows, developers can take its freely available source code and make any changes or enhancements to its software functions, which not only helps users to eradicate bugs and vulnerabilities, but to edit features in order for it to do new things and work with prototype applications.
From a financial perspective, being open-source means there is no software licence to pay for and so, in comparison to Windows, using it is more cost-effective as your provider won’t need to charge you for it.
While Windows is compatible with Microsoft software, Linux works with most open-source software, like WordPress, meaning software licencing can be less expensive across the board. What’s useful is that Linux also enables users to run Microsoft programs as well, giving it a broader versatility, including the ability to use legacy applications which require a Windows emulator – though obviously, the user will need to pay for using any proprietary software.
Linux servers also offer other advantages. Their applications generally aren’t as resource-hungry, making them less liable to become sluggish under heavy workloads, and if needed, the servers can be modified without rebooting.
Another advantage is that Linux is more secure than Windows. This is simply down to the fact that, as the World’s leading OS, Windows has become the main target for hackers. The vast number of PCs using Windows just means there are more Windows computers to attack and so this makes it a more attractive OS to target.
Other considerations
Generally, Windows is easier to install and manage than Linux. However, as many companies are now making use of managed server hosting, this task is increasingly being done by the hosting provider. However, it may be a consideration for those purchasing an in-house system.
The same logic applies to technical support, which together with updates and patching comes included with a Windows package. If you use a Linux OS, in-house users will need to provide their own support or buy it in. Of course, this isn’t the case where the server is hosted for you, as with both systems, technical support, updating and patching will be included in the hosting package.
Conclusion
Windows and Linux are both excellent operating systems that have their own advantages and constraints. Your choice depends on the applications you use now and intend to use in the future, your expertise and familiarity with the systems and whether they provide you with the means to achieve your business goals. Pricing is also a consideration; however, if Windows is the best option in terms of what you need to achieve, then it is worth paying for.
Digital transformation puts companies in a far more advantages, giving them all the benefits that the latest technologies bestow. However, while the adoption of new technologies is a key element of the process, deeper changes are needed before an organisation can truly reap the rewards. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what digital transformation is and what it can offer.
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation puts companies in a far more advantages . On one level, digital transformation is the process of adopting technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning and the IoT in order to make business processes more effective and efficient. What makes these technologies particularly beneficial is their ability to gather and process data. This enables companies to be more informed about their processes, strategies and activities while giving them data-driven insights to help with decision-making.
The adoption of these technologies, digital transformation puts companies in a far more advantages however, is not merely something that happens in the data centre or in IT, it brings change to the entire organisation, forcing the company to rethink its goals and strategies, reorganise its structures and roles, and to make changes to processes that affect all its workforce. Indeed, for many companies, some of these changes are often necessary before the process of digital transformation can commence. Key here is the corporate attitude to digital transformation. For it to be successful, the business needs to embrace new technologies and this often requires a shift in company culture.
The driving force behind successful digital transformation is the digital leader. This is someone who clearly knows the technologies needed to transform the company and who understands the changes their deployment will bring. These leaders don’t just have belief in the project, they are also able to communicate that belief in order to bring on the cultural shift that’s required – and that’s not just in the board room; it’s across the whole business.
Once the company is ready to embrace new technologies and the changes they will bring, there are numerous benefits that can result. Here are some of the main ones.
Making the most of data
Digitalisation helps break down departmental silos so that data can be unified and more easily analysed. As a result, end to end customer journey mapping is attainable, while other forms of unstructured data can be combined to gain previously unobtainable insights.
Cost savings
While technologies like cloud, with its pay as you go pricing, can significantly reduce IT costs, this is just the tip of the cost-saving iceberg. New technology can help companies optimise a wide range of business processes, providing valuable data to show where efficiencies can be made
Consolidation
Modern digital technologies can transform how a business goes about its operations, helping to streamline its workflows and, in the process, cut employee workloads and reduce overheads.
Creating customer-centric businesses
One of the main benefits of digital transformation is that the data it provides about customers enables businesses to improve the customer experience. From websites that offer personalised products to communications sent at the right time and via the right channel and with the right message, digital transformation enables businesses to deliver experiences that the customer wants.
More attractive products and services
Understanding what the customer wants not only improves the customer experience, it also enables businesses to provide the products and services that the customer is looking for. It helps manufacturers with product design and retailers with inventory selection while enabling other companies to offer services which are more likely to appeal to their customers. As a result, companies become increasingly more effective in the marketplace.
Precise market segmentation
The technology available to digitally transformed businesses enables them to have far more information about their customers, helping them to discover new market segments that, in the past, they would never have been aware of.
Omnichannel customer experiences
Digital technology enables business-wide systems to be put into place so that your customers can interact and buy from you when, where and how they choose, whether that’s online or at your bricks and mortar store.
A more agile and innovative business
The modern technology that digital transformation provides is faster, more powerful and more capable than legacy IT systems. It makes it easier for teams to collaborate and enables businesses to react quickly to market changes. It also speeds up the development and launch of new products, services and strategies.
Conclusion
Digital transformation is not merely the process of deploying new technologies, it’s the adoption of a digital culture that embraces this technology and carefully manages the significant changes that it will bring to the company as a whole. As technology is in constant development, digital transformation, too, is an ongoing process. However, once the culture is in place and the technology is deployed, there are significant benefits to be had.
According to retail analyst, GlobalData, over 50% of UK consumers now shop online, with spending predicted to grow 30% by 2024. Indeed, by 2021, Statista forecasts 93% of internet users in the UK will be shopping online. While this is fantastic news for online businesses, it comes hand in hand with a growth in competition as more companies launch websites: 84% had them in 2018 compared to 70% in 2007. To be successful in such a competitive marketplace, companies will need to find ways of increasing website traffic and in this post, we’ll explain some of the main ways to achieve this.
1. Online advertising
For companies with new websites or those which struggle to get listed in search engine results, online advertising is often the chief method of attracting customers to your website. The main way to advertise is with Google and Bing, using paid search ads that appear in search results or display ads that appear on other websites. Alternatively, you can also advertise on social media sites. All of these options allow you to target specific audiences and track the progress of your campaign, helping to ensure your advertising budget is spent effectively. It can, however, be an expensive strategy.
2. Content marketing
Internet users aren’t always looking for products or services; quite often what they are seeking is information or ideas to help them solve problems. Providing content on your website which solves those problems can massively boost the number of people who visit as it can be found in search results and shared on social media. If that content subtly mentions and links to a product or service that you supply, it increases the chances of a sale. Take, for example, someone with a small garden looking for ideas to spruce it up. They find a blog article from a garden centre called ’10 ideas for revamping a small garden’ in which they find a picture of a table and chair set they like, together with a link to the product page. From this article, the visitor solves their problem and the garden centre makes a sale. This technique is widely used by businesses in all sectors.
3. Social media marketing
If businesses don’t want to pay for advertising on social media, they can always use these sites to promote their brand, their web content and their products or services. Social media is great for posting links to your website and with the ability to use eye-catching images and video, it can be a highly effective way to increase traffic, especially as other users can spread the word by liking and sharing your posts.
4. Improve SEO
Search engines are the main way consumers find the things they are looking for online, so optimising your website for them is vital if you want to improve the chances of your web pages ranking well in search results.
While the crucial factor in SEO is providing high-quality, fresh and relevant content on your pages, you must not overlook all the other key ingredients. These include having a well-structured, easily navigable website and placing relevant keywords in the titles, subheadings, meta descriptions and content.
5. A mobile-friendly website
A mobile-friendly or responsive website is a necessity in today’s online market. The main reason for this is the fact that users spend more time online on their phones than they do on laptops or other devices. Increasingly, users are also shopping more on mobiles too. According to Statista, at the end of 2018, smartphones generated the largest share of online retail revenue in the UK with many sources predicting the amount spent using mobile devices would double over the next few years to around £40 billion.
There are many reasons for this growth: there are more phone users, there is better internet access away from home, there are easier ways for people to pay using their phones and, importantly, more companies are providing mobile-friendly websites. For businesses, the last point is crucial, as without a mobile-friendly site, the growing market of smartphone shoppers won’t be able to fully access your store. That’s an issue which also makes search engines downrank sites which aren’t mobile-friendly.
6. Make use of email marketing
Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing technique and is very inexpensive to implement. There are various ways to grow an email list, such as using a pop-up that offers an incentive to sign up (e.g. 10% off your first order) or asking customers to sign up during the checkout process (e.g. ‘Get updates of our new products and latest offers’).
Once visitors have signed up, you can send marketing emails to them for free with links to your website included. Today, many companies combine email marketing with the use of personalised product recommendation software which tracks what a visitor has been looking at on the website and sends out emails with links to relevant products. This personalised form of email marketing can significantly increase traffic to your site.
7. Security and speed
Two other factors which can affect traffic numbers are security and speed. If your website is marked as ‘not secure’ on browsers, many users will not visit even if it appears in search results. Additionally, according to Google, 53% of visitors will abandon the site if it takes over three seconds to load on their devices. Solving these problems requires the installation of an SSL certificate on your website to make it secure and ensuring that the site is optimised to make it faster. Speed can also be increased by ensuring that your site is hosted on high-performance servers and that your hosting package provides all the resources to cater for the traffic your site needs.
Conclusion
The first step to increasing online sales is getting more people to visit your website. This has become increasingly difficult to achieve as growing numbers of businesses go online and compete for customers. That said, the internet market continues to grow, with more people spending more money online. Hopefully, the ideas presented here will help your business generate more online traffic.
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