Train Your Filter

While most built-in spam filters are reasonably effective at identifying and disposing of useless or harmful emails, spammer tactics are constantly evolving, which means that once in a while something may slip past the filter. In such cases, don’t just delete the email; instead, take a moment to mark it as spam so that your filter can learn and catch a similar message the next time someone tries to send it. Likewise, periodically check your spam folder to make sure that no legitimate emails accidentally got caught in the crossfire, and be sure to mark it as “not spam” if so.

Double Up

There are a number of readily available third-party spam filters that you can use to augment your email provider’s existing filter, but you can also double up on spam protection by linking email addresses from multiple providers in order to combine their spam-blocking technology into an even more effective filter. Gmail offers an especially robust filter, so one way to take advantage of it is to create a Gmail account, go into the settings, and add your other mail accounts under the “Accounts and Import” tab. This means that any emails you receive will be filtered for spam both by your original provider and by Google before reaching your inbox, thereby adding another layer of protection.

Create a Throwaway Account

In many cases, spam that gets past your filter is the result of sharing your email address with a disreputable company that then sold your information to marketing lists. One way to deal with the issue is to create a second, disposable email address that you use whenever you need to list an email address for any business, service, or entity that you don’t need to stay in contact with. All of the spam and marketing material will be sent to the decoy address, allowing your actual inbox to stay clutter-free.

Watch Out For Pre-Checked Boxes

One of the sneakier tactics that many businesses use to reach your inbox is to add a checkbox that is already selected when you are making a purchase, allowing them to send you notifications or marketing material. In many cases, the fine print on these clauses also allows them to share your email address with other marketers. Avoid rushing through the online shopping process, and always take a moment before checkout to scan the page for any pre-checked boxes. If you do miss one, look in any promotional emails they send you for a link to unsubscribe from their mailing list. It is required by law for companies to provide the link, so while they may make it tiny and hard to spot or place it at the bottom of the email, you can make sure they stop pestering you.

Avoid Chain Emails

While they have become significantly less common in recent years, chain emails are still a major vector for spam. Forwarding or responding to a chain email allows the original senders to know which email addresses are active, and thus prime targets for marketers. As well, once an email is forwarded, you lose control over who can see your address, and it becomes trivial for a spammer to simply harvest all the information and bundle it to be sold to a marketing list.

Use Extensions

For an even more serious spam filter, consider turning to third-party extensions. Some apps, such as Mailwasher, are available through any browser or operating system, while others, such as SpamSieve, are macOS exclusive. Chrome users can take advantage of the unique and free Burner Emails extension, which automatically generates a custom, unique email address every time you need to provide an email to a company, and then forwards any non-spam messages they send directly to your inbox so that you can access any important correspondence without sacrificing your privacy or putting your email address in the wrong hands.

Spammers are constantly developing new tricks and techniques for bypassing sophisticated filters and impersonating others, so it’s important to remain vigilant in order to minimize the risk of exposure to malware and identity theft. You might not be able to completely rid yourself of annoying junk mail, but by sticking to the practices outlined above, you can significantly reduce the amount of spam that gets into your inbox.

How Users Interact with Sites

Back in 2010, only about 20 percent of a person’s online-time took place on a mobile device. At that point, designing with mobile-friendly features wasn’t necessarily a top priority for businesses.

Now, recent figures estimate that mobile traffic accounts for at least half of all web traffic worldwide. If half (or more) of your traffic is originating from mobile devices, it’s crucial that visitors to your site can access your site from a smartphone. At the same time, you can’t rule out the importance of desktop computers, laptops, and tablets as well. First impressions are important, and consumers take website design and ease-of-use very seriously:

• • According to 85 percent of adults surveyed, a business’s mobile site should perform as efficiently (or better) than the desktop version.
• • If your site performs poorly on a mobile device, 57 percent of users won’t recommend your business to others.
• • If they have a bad experience on your site, 88 percent of consumers are less likely to return.
• • Website users form an impression of your website, mobile or otherwise, within 50 milliseconds.

SEO: How Search Engines Interact with Sites

If you don’t design with mobile capabilities in mind, you’re also missing a crucial element in your SEO plan. Starting in 2018, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing, which means that the bots that “crawl” each page of your site will prioritize the mobile version of your web content.

So, if your website isn’t optimized to perform well on a mobile device, it may hurt your chances of securing a high ranking on Google. Luckily, solid practices in both responsive and mobile-first design can satisfy Google’s mobile-first indexing and support your SEO efforts.

Mobile First vs. Responsive Design: Crucial Differences

Both responsive design and mobile-first design seek to address the same issue: ensuring that users, regardless of their method of accessing your site, enjoy a quick, efficient, and aesthetically-pleasing experience. With solid responsive or mobile-first design, your users should have a sufficient experience regardless of how they access your site. However, there are some crucial differences between these two designs.

1. Difference in Design Process

Responsive. A responsive website needs to perform well regardless of the device used to access the site. To do so, the initial site will be created to suit a desktop but optimized to adapt to any screen the user chooses. While the site’s functionality and content will be primarily geared towards desktop viewers, mobile visitors should still have an easy, streamlined experience when visiting the site. Sometimes this is known as “graceful degradation,” meaning that the site will scale down its elements from desktop to mobile phone.

Mobile-first. While responsive design prioritizes the desktop view of a website, mobile-first is optimized to smartphone usage from the beginning of the design process. First, the content is designed so that it will look and function its absolute best when accessed on a phone. From there, developers will ensure that the site is also fully functional if it’s accessed via tablet, laptop, or desktop.

2. Content Differences

Because responsive websites are first and foremost built to accommodate desktop viewers, they have the capability to present large amounts of complex information easily. For example, a B2B website that includes multiple charts, heavy forms, and in-depth analyses of a product might function better with a responsive web design. Viewing complex information on a desktop is simply easier and allows for simpler interaction with multiple menus, diagrams, and complicated information.

By contrast, mobile first design accommodates content that is more sleek and minimalist. Key information is laid out very clearly for the user to navigate even on a small screen. Content may be shorter, cleaner, and less complex — but should always be very easily accessible for the viewer. Businesses that opt for mobile-first design often know that their target customers tend to access online info via smartphones, and adapt their content accordingly.

3. Implications for Online Visitors

In the hands of a skilled team, both responsive and mobile-first designed websites should work pretty well for your online visitors, regardless of their preferred method of accessing websites. However, when you reflect on the different types of content that function best with either design, then it’s clear there are some slight implications for online visitors.

For example, even if the page elements of a complex-content-heavy responsive web design load well on a mobile phone, the content style itself might create a headache for some online visitors. By catering the design process for either desktops or mobiles in the beginning of the process, you can ensure that your key customers are receiving the absolute best online experience.

4. Progressive Advancement

Designing for mobile-first websites embraces the concept of “progressive advancement,” which means that features are created in order to accommodate the decreased capabilities of a smaller device like a smartphone.

When designing mobile-first, certain features that may be used for responsive designed websites will be cut right from the start. For example, hover features (involving the mouse of a keyboard) are irrelevant in a smartphone and will probably be eliminated. Same goes for certain animations, charts, HD images, and large graphics. Features that can’t perform functionally with a mobile phone’s bandwidth are simply avoided — leaving room for developers to seek a more streamlined approach right from the start.

How do You Choose Between Responsive and Mobile-First Design?

Regardless of which option you choose, if you partner with a good web development team you’re going to wind up with a site that performs adequately across devices. However, it makes sense to cater your strategy to fit your business’s needs as closely as possible. If you’re in the process of designing or updating a web presence, ask yourself these questions:

• • What devices do your customers use? Figure out who your customers are and how they’re accessing your site. If they’re primarily accessing your products and services on desktops or laptops, then it makes sense to go with a responsive design.
• • What sort of content are you offering? Is it your site’s goal to offer succinct information to share with your prospective visitors? Then you might want to go with a mobile-first design. On the other hand, if your business model require that you share vast quantities of complex information to your customers, a responsive design might be your best bet.

Design Your Strategy for Next Year

It’s absolutely crucial that your website is accessible and functional on any device that your online visitors may choose. In the age of mobile-first indexing and the accelerating use of smartphones to access the web, it’s non-negotiable.

However, choosing between mobile-first and responsive design as a strategy requires a close look at what your website offers, who is accessing your site, and what content you need to convey.

However, public WiFi has one major drawback, and that’s security. “Public” means accessible to anyone, including hackers. Public networks, unlike your home network, are unencrypted, allowing anyone to connect without a passphrase. Because they are unencrypted, they’re an attractive place for hackers to lurk nearby and intercept data from unsuspecting users. Fortunately, there are several ways to thwart hackers and keep your data secure.

First, you should update your operating system and applications, particularly your web browser. This is good general advice for all security scenarios and applies here. Updated software not only quashes bugs and adds new features but also plugs known security holes which give hackers an open door to your data. Set your software to update automatically or frequently check for updates to ensure you’re on the latest versions.

Next, activate your system’s firewall and disable all file sharing to harden your device against intruders. On macOS, firewall settings are found in System Preferences > Security & Privacy and file-sharing settings are in System Preferences > Sharing. Mac users should also disable Airdrop by clicking it in the Finder and, from the popup menu for “Allow me to be discovered by:,” choose “No One.” In Windows, firewall settings are in Control Panel > System and Security and file sharing are in Control Panel > Network and Internet. Under Network and Internet, Windows users will also want to disable printer sharing and network discovery.

Hardening phones is a bit simpler. On iOS, disable Airdrop by going to Settings > General > Airdrop and tap “Receiving Off.” For Android phones, it’s best to install anti-malware software that will enhance your overall security and detect any spyware or trojans.

Now you’re ready to connect to public WiFi, but don’t just choose any available network. Hackers can set up their own “honeypot” networks to lure in unsuspecting users. They may call their networks “Free Starbucks” or “Airport WiFi,” but such official-sounding networks are not necessarily the real ones. Always check with the business or establishment for the name of their official network before connecting.

Once you’re connected and browsing the Web, it’s a simple matter of understanding the difference between HTTP and HTTPS. Sites with HTTP in their URL are not encrypted, and that data can be read by any hacker in the vicinity. Sites with HTTPS, on the other hand, are encrypted, preventing hackers from reading any of the data. Some browsers hide the HTTP or HTTPS part of the URL in the address bar, but they will display a green lock icon when a site is encrypted with HTTPS. Using HTTPS sites on Public WiFi is essential if you want to keep your data private, like when logging into Facebook or Paypal, for instance.

There is one big caution when browsing with HTTPS. Links in email or on a website may not take you where you think they’re taking you. Hackers can plant false links with slight misspellings or even completely renamed anchor links that take you to a spoof site designed to steal your login name and password. For this reason, never click on a link when connecting to sensitive sites such as banking or shopping sites. Always manually type the URL or use your own bookmark.

If HTTPS browsing isn’t enough for your needs, you can get a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to encrypt all your Internet data. This will not only protect your Web browsing but also your data in all applications such as email and FTP clients, which are otherwise unencrypted. Some VPNs are free, others charge modest subscriptions of varying lengths (as short as one day), but some are better than others. It’s wise to read the reviews before subscribing to such a service.

Public WiFi is often called a cesspool, and this is correct. That doesn’t mean you should throw up your hands and avoid it. Using simple precautions as those mentioned above, you can stay one step ahead of the hackers and turn their day of spying into a day of frustration. So enjoy your coffee or your stay in an airport lounge free of the fear that your private information will fall into some crook’s hands. Your information is yours, and you have the power to keep it that way.

Which Website Design Option Is Best?

As with every other decision, choosing the website design option depends upon several factors. Businesses should consider the budget, complexity of the site, whether the site will offer e-commerce, and the time-frame in which the site is expected to be completed. There are several other factors to keep in mind, as well. First, it’s important to understand the differences between the two and their benefits and drawbacks.

What Is a Custom Website?

As the name implies, a custom website is one that is designed specifically for the business. It will incorporate the company colors, logo, information about the products or services, and any other personalized information that’s important and necessary. The site is tailored to appeal to the company’s audience to enhance the customer’s experience with the brand to build a strong relationship with them.

Key Benefits of Custom Website Design

There are many benefits associated with custom website design, including the following:

• • A custom design reflects the company’s unique brand, image, ideals, and offerings.
• • A custom website helps a business stand out and attract new customers.
• • Custom sites use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to improve search engine ranking.
• • Custom sites load faster because they contain less unnecessary code.
• • A custom website design is designed to grow with the business’s needs.
• • Customized sites are designed to work on all devices with an emphasis on mobile devices.
• • Custom websites are designed by a dedicated team of experienced web design professionals.
• • Ongoing support from the design team means if there’s ever a problem with the site, it can be addressed quickly.

Drawbacks of Custom Website Design

While there are some serious benefits to custom website design, there are also some drawbacks including:

• • The cost of a custom website is substantially higher than using a template.
• • Custom websites can take weeks, or even months, to fully design, develop, and implement.
• • Delays arise if the website designer and business owner don’t communicate well.

The benefits of a custom website far outweigh the drawbacks. Now, take a look at the other option, a pre-made template, to see how it stacks up against custom website design.

What Is a Pre-Made Website Template?

Contrary to a custom website, a website template is a pre-made webpage or set of webpages that anyone can use. It is a basic, generic design that allows a person to enter information and images in pre-determined locations within the page.

Benefits of Pre-Made Website Templates

There are some key benefits that businesses realize when using a pre-made template, including:

• • Templates are relatively inexpensive to purchase, and many templates are available at no cost.
• • Fast design, development, and launch of the site. Often, it can be done in a day or less.
• • Anyone can create a website using a pre-made template as it requires no experience or coding.
• • Most templates allow for some level of customization, although not as much as a custom website
• • Drawbacks of Pre-Made Website Templates

The benefits of using a template, as listed above, are minimal. However, the drawbacks are not:

• • Perhaps the biggest drawback of a template design is that it’s not unique and anyone can use it.
• • Pre-made website templates do not allow for the same level of customization as a custom design.
• • Installing and using plug-ins and widgets to improve the site can be a challenge for novices.
• • Website templates lack the SEO capabilities that custom sites offer meaning they won’t rank well.
• • Templates often contain coding and other elements that aren’t necessary and cannot be removed.
• • A template designed website may not work properly on all devices.
• • There is limited, if any, support for people who build a website using a template. You’re on your own.
• • A pre-made website template is restrictive in terms of growth and expansion over time.

Making the Choice: Custom Design or Template Design

One may draw the conclusion that a pre-made website design is not as beneficial as a custom website design. That may be true, depending upon the business’s unique needs and expectations. No one knows a business better than the person who owns it, and it’s up to them to decide which option is best. However, experts agree that a custom site is the way to go for a business that’s either creating or altering their web presence. If a company’s budget doesn’t allow for that kind of investment, however, they can always start with a template and then hire a professional website designer in the future.

If you feel that having everything you do online tracked and recorded is a violation of your privacy, you’re not alone. Many people are opting to browse anonymously for a variety of reasons. There are several ways to keep your online activity from being tracked, with varying levels of anonymity. Here are five of the most popular options to stay private as you explore the online world.

1. Go Incognito

A common option for anonymous online browsing is using a private or incognito browsing window. While your internet service provider and other agencies can still see your activity if they want to, your history won’t be saved on your device for others to find. Incognito windows are good for things like shopping for gifts on a shared family computer, looking up a concerning illness that you haven’t yet disclosed, or any other browsing sessions you’d like to keep from the prying eyes of family and friends.

2. Switch to TOR Browser

One of the best options for anonymity when browsing online is switching to TOR browser. TOR browser encrypts your online searches through multiple users. Your searches appear to come from multiple IP addresses, which prevents any passive surveillance and thwarts companies efforts to gather your data as you browse their sites.

3. Search with a Private Engine

Not everyone appreciates having ads based on their latest search query following them around like sales minions. Using a private search engine like DuckDuckGo, which doesn’t save your searches or sell your data to advertisement companies, can stop you from being bombarded with annoying, and sometimes creepy, personalized ads.

4. Use Public WiFi

If you don’t want your internet service provider to see what you’re doing online, one way is to use public WiFi instead of your home internet connection. Users on free, non-password-protected WiFi, like at a cafe or public library, aren’t required to set up an account to get access. Any online browsing you perform cannot be traced back to you. Only use public WiFi sources that you know and trust, though, as hackers will sometimes set up fake public WiFi hot-spots to spy on your activity.

5. Connect Via a VPN

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is one of the safest ways to go online without being tracked by anyone from outside, such as your internet service provider. It completely masks your IP address when you’re online, acting as a middle-man between you and your browsing activity. VPNs do cost money, but if you don’t want your internet service provider spying on you, they are worth the price. To make sure that the VPN itself isn’t tracking your information, use a zero log VPN, which doesn’t record user activity.

Going online shouldn’t have to mean giving up your right to privacy. For surefire protection against prying eyes, consider combining some of the anonymous browsing methods above, such as a VPN against outside tracking and private browsing windows so that others sharing your device can’t see what you’ve been up to. Your level of anonymity is up to you!

A “lead” is a person who may turn into a customer. In terms of your website, they are the people who have somehow provided you their contact information. Contact information could be an email address, phone number, or physical address. When people provide their contact information, it means they are interested in your business on some level. Many people become leads when they sign up for your newsletter because they want to continue receiving the type of content you produce. People might also offer their phone number in exchange for something free, like a discount or eBook.

Not just any website will produce leads, however. A website that does not produce leads will be a waste of time and valuable resources. To ensure your company’s website is generating leads efficiently, implement the following six foundations into your website’s design and management.

1. Valuable, SEO-Friendly Content

Your website content is one of the primary ways to rank highly in the search engines and produce leads from non-search engine sources. Content comes in a variety of formats, but the most important ones for your website will be the on-page copy, articles, and relevant videos. Other content formats, such as eBooks or shareable graphics, are important for many reasons, but they are secondary outlets when it comes to lead-generation directly pertaining to your website.

To ensure that content is producing leads, you need to optimize all of them for the search engines. For written content, this means inserting relevant keywords where they naturally fit the content to help search bots understand the content. It also means utilizing H2 headers, bullets, numbered lists, and concise sentences. For video, that means making good use of metadata, using closed captioning, and incorporating short paragraphs of text beneath videos to describe them. All content needs to be both engaging and valuable to your target audience.

2. Simple, Intuitive Website Design

It may be tempting to go for all the bells and whistles when it comes to your website design, but less is more. Complex designs are faulty for a few different reasons. Primarily, complex designs are usually very difficult to navigate. Too many design elements can also make your page loading times lag, which reduces the number of leads produced by a website.

A simple, clean website is best. Utilizing ample white space can make your design look clean and attractive. Small pops of contrast in your color scheme will naturally draw the viewer’s eyes to important elements (like headers or contact forms). Keep the number of navigational links to a minimum, and provide contact information (such as a form) on each page. This will help make getting in touch with your company easier on the customer, as well as keep it at the front of their mind as they browse.

3. High-quality Graphics and Video in Moderation

The use of high-quality graphics and videos can greatly enhance both the effectiveness and visual appeal of your website. Using them in moderation, however, is the key. All videos or graphics need to be relevant to your target audience and the information provided, and you should be picky when it comes to what makes it to the final design. Too many graphics or videos could slow down your page load times.

The right videos and graphics, however, can greatly enhance any written content. These formats are also shared on social media platforms much more frequently than written content, which means they have a significantly higher chance of going viral. Videos are the most shared content format modernly.

4. Obvious Subscription Points

You want people to subscribe to your other channels, such as your company’s email newsletter and social media pages. Your customers do not want to subscribe to you badly enough to hunt down that information.

If you want your website to bring you an ample amount of cross-platform leads, you need to make all subscriptions points obvious. Use an email subscription contact form on all your company’s main pages, or perhaps even in the sidebar or footer of your website. Include social media buttons both in your company’s website header and (if applicable) in the footer, also. When you utilize call-to-actions in your blog posts or articles, always use links or embed contact forms to make taking the desired action easier.

5. Effective Landing Pages

Landing pages are the number one way that your website will garner leads. Landing pages are also one of the main ways that companies make mistakes, which cost them a significant number of leads. The simplicity and ease of creating landing pages can lull website designers and marketers into an unfounded sense of ease. There is, however, an art to creating landing pages.

Effective landing pages need to be simple and make use of clear, concise wording. A single graphic or design element should be used, preferably just above or directly to the left of the contact form. The contact form should be limited to three or fewer entries. Contact forms which require too much information are less likely to be filled out. Also make use of words that create urgency, such as “now,” “immediately,” and “limited time.”

6. Utilize Mobile Optimization

People today access the internet via mobile devices more than they do through traditional computers. A mobile device is most often a cell phone, but it can also refer to tablets or electronic reading devices. With so many accessing the internet through these devices, a website that isn’t optimized for mobile users will never get the same attention or leads as one which is.

Many website hosts offer the ability to create a mobile-friendly version automatically. Other times, it is necessary to create a separate website for mobile usage. The most important thing to remember is that brevity is vital on mobile websites. Everything should be shortened to the bare necessity, and this includes any blog posts or articles.

In Conclusion

If you implement the six foundations listed above, your website should continue producing leads at a rate which makes the invested time and resources worthwhile. Remember that many of these foundations require momentum to produce significant results. With patience and continued effort, each foundation will eventually begin producing a significant amount of leads for your company, and those results will only continue growing over time.

Make a List of Common User Questions

Although there is some artificial intelligence (AI) baked into some chatbots, you still need to “train” your bot to understand common questions asked by your customers. The best way to train and test a chatbot is to feed it common questions.

If you don’t know common questions, it’s time to start tracking the questions you get from users. Even better, track the questions you get on each site page, and then track the answers for these questions. For instance, if you sell clothing, customers might ask what colors are sold for a specific shirt or if the shirt comes in a certain size. These simple questions can be tracked and answered by your chatbot.

The goal of a chatbot is to answer customer questions, but they are also useful to make site browsing more convenient. When you track answers to common questions, point users to the page that has answers or the product that they’re looking for.

Get Confirmation That Users Receive the Right Answers

Even the best testing can miss bugs. You can identify if your customers are receiving the right answers by asking for confirmation once they’re sent to a new page or after they ask a question. Asking the question, “Did you find this answer useful?” will provide you with feedback directly from customers.

Not every customer will give you feedback. Some of them will just take the information provided and move on. Others won’t find the feedback useful. But some will provide the right kind of feedback that helps you improve a chatbot.

Create a Conversation Flowchart

Creating a flowchart of conversations is the most difficult part of chatbot design. You must be able to anticipate questions and then follow-up responses. With multiple choice responses, you must design a chatbot to provide multiple answers and then responses to any follow-up questions.

AI will help with misspellings and typos, but you need a design that anticipates these small errors. With a dictionary of typos, you can identify the correct spelling of a word. Chatbot AI hasn’t perfected typos like search engines. Even complex search engines, such as Google, have a team to help with synonyms and typos, so for you to keep a dictionary of correctly spelled words will be a large project. Start with common misspellings and log others to add to your dictionary database.

Keep the Bot Visible and Easily Found

Some online stores open a small chatbot window in the lower corner of a site page. This makes the chatbot easily found when a visitor doesn’t know where to find information. Usually, these bots open with an introduction and a question asking users if they need help.

If you don’t want to automatically open a new window, provide a link that persists across pages. The link can be on a sidebar to the left or right where it’s easily visible. The user should also be able to minimize the window to make browsing easier. You don’t want a chatbot to obstruct the user’s view of products.

Keep Answers Short and Grammatically Correct

With email and voice communication, you can go into detail and give the customer a lot of information to digest. With a chatbot, you don’t want to overwhelm the reader with too much information. Chatbots are great replacements for simple questions normally handled by customer service support. These simple questions should be the primary focus of a chatbot design.

In addition to keeping answers simple and concise, you should also proofread and ensure that they are grammatically correct with no typos. Poorly written answers make your online store look unprofessional and can scare away potential customers.

Don’t Be Afraid to Add Personality

Your chatbot doesn’t have to be dry and humorless. You can give it a personality, a name, and even an avatar. Be careful not to lie to pretend that the visitor is speaking to a real human, or it could lead to frustration. Should the visitor get frustrated, you can always provide a voice contact number to call.

Chatbots can be your own robot personality to bring information to visitors. They can save you money by eliminating the need for a human to answer low-level questions, and they can help a store owner that has no money to hire additional resources. There are plenty of chatbot providers on the web, so you don’t have to create them yourself. However, you need to work with the packaged AI. Other options include hiring a developer to personalize a chatbot for your site.

Create At Least Three Copies of Data

It’s not enough to have just one copy of your data. Whether you create backups once a day or once a week, there is a high probability that at least one of those backups will get corrupted or fail during data transfer. Some backup applications perform a check on stored files before reporting it complete, but that’s still no guarantee of the reliability of your files. You could check manually after each backup, but this solution is tedious and time-consuming.

The 3-2-1 rule states that you should have at least three copies of your data. You can save all three copies to various media, but you must store it in two different locations. Three copies will ensure that at least one is a viable backup. There is still a slight risk that all three could get corrupted, but the chance is so small that it’s considered a negligible risk. Usually, when administrators find that multiple backups corrupted, it’s because they stored them on faulty media and didn’t diversify the storage media.

At Least Two Copies Must Be On Two Different Media

You could transfer three copies of your data to one hard drive, but what happens when that hard drive crashes? You’ve just lost every one of your backups. That is why the 3-2-1 rule requires placing at least two copies on two different media.

This section of the rule is where it can be expensive for small business, but you have several options. Most administrators use NAS (network attached storage) to store one of the copies. A NAS is convenient because, should you need to transfer a backup to production, you already have a copy that’s easily accessible and already connected to the network.

Your second copy can be on any removable media. Another option is using cloud storage. You could transfer a backup to another hard drive, but you should still have a secondary media device available. The choice in media makes a difference, and you should choose it with a strategy for your disaster recovery. DVDs are typical for small offices that do not store much data, but the most common option is cloud storage.

Cloud storage has an advantage over most other media options. First, it’s a cheaper option than buying hundreds of DVDs to cover your storage needs. Second, it’s much more affordable than buying traditional hardware. Most cloud storage providers base their charges on the amount of storage you need. You can scale up or down depending on your budget and storage capacity requirements. The third advantage is that storing your files on the internet allow you to restore backups from any location.

One Backup Must Be Stored Off-Site

You may have three backups, two of them stored on different media, but what happens when your office suffers from fire or theft? All of your reserves are destroyed or lost, and you can no longer recover your data after a catastrophe. That is why the last rule is to keep an off-site copy of your data at all times.

Cloud storage offers dual advantages for the 3-2-1 rule. It covers the requirement for secondary media, and it satisfies the requirement to keep a copy off-site. It’s an all-in-one solution for businesses that need a solid disaster recovery plan to protect their data.

If you ever study older enterprise corporations, some of them still use old tape backups but this solution is moving to the cloud. Small businesses can satisfy the 3-2-1 with DVD backups. The owner can bring these backups to his home, but this isn’t a viable option for long as the company grows and accumulates more data.

If you don’t use cloud storage, you need to find a solution that allows a trusted person take home a backup. Some third-party companies provide a way to store backups at their facility, which is an option if no person in the company can provide storage. Any of these solutions will protect backups from natural disasters.

Disaster Recovery and Security

Having only backups is not enough to create a full disaster recovery plan. It takes months to develop a comprehensive strategic plan that protects from disaster. These plans are a part of your cybersecurity, and you should have them fully integrated into your security management practices across all parts of your infrastructure.

After you determine your backup plan, don’t forget to add the right security protocols to copies and the media that you use for storage. Attackers look specifically for backups because these files have the most data and resources in them. Think of a full database backup. It has all of your customer data, personal data for employees, and information that is extremely valuable to an attacker.

Attackers no longer steal data to use for their identity-theft campaigns. They take data to sell to others who will use this information to obtain credit cards, loans, or fraudulent accounts. Hacking is now a business, and your data is the target. Using the right security measures to protect your data backups will ensure that your business is not the reason for thousands of consumers to lose their data to identity thieves.

Depending on the size of your business, it can take you a few weeks or a few months to get the right backup solution ready and implemented. Cloud storage can reduce a lot of the cost overhead for storage solutions. It’s much more affordable than buying terabytes of storage space. It scales automatically instead of paying high upfront costs for storage capacity.

How Much Money Can I Make Flipping Websites?

There’s really no limit to how much money you can make when flipping websites. If you have the necessary funds to purchase websites and the skills to improve them, you can earn thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per flip. But like flipping real estate, there’s a possibility you could lose money on bad flips. To minimize this risk, you should thoroughly research prospective websites, purchasing only the sites that you can confidently improve.

You’ll typically make money in two ways when flipping websites: selling the purchased website as well as monetizing it while you own it. The value of a website is primarily influenced by its historic revenue, with many webmasters selling their sites for the equivalent of 12 to 24 months of revenue. A website that generates $400 per month in affiliate sales or ad clicks, for example, may sell for $4,800 to $9,600. Because historic revenue is so closely tied to a website’s value, it’s important that optimize your purchased websites to generate more revenue. In addition to offering a supplemental stream of revenue, it makes your websites more attractive to prospective buyers, meaning you can sell them for a higher price.

Website Marketplaces vs. Brokers

Sending cold emails to prospective websites that you’d like to purchase and flip is generally a waste of time. Unless a webmaster specifically says that he or she wants to sell the website, you’ll encounter rejection after rejection. A smarter and more effective way to purchase websites is to use a website marketplace or broker.

A website marketplace is an online platform that connects webmasters looking to sell their sites with prospective buyers looking to purchase sites. Although they have guidelines that sellers and buyers must follow, website marketplaces have a low barrier of entry. After creating an account, you can begin browsing their listings for the perfect website to buy and flip.

Some of the top website marketplaces include:
• Flippa.com
• eBay.com
• Marketplace.DigitalPoint.com/Sites
• Sedo.com
• WebHostingTalk.com

A website broker, on the other hand, is an organization — typically with an online platform similar to a website marketplace — that vets all websites before listing them for sale. When a webmaster lists his or her website for sale through a broker, the broker checks the website and verifies the accuracy of the webmaster’s provided documents, including traffic logs, revenue and search rankings. Only high-quality websites that meet the broker’s criteria are listed for sale, and some brokers only list websites that earn a minimum amount of revenue, such as $1,000 per month.

Some of the top website brokers include:
• FEInternational.com
• EmpireFlippers.com
• WebsiteBroker.com

Choose a Website to Flip

The success of your website flipping business will be dependent upon your ability to choose the right websites to purchase. If you’re unable to improve or otherwise add value to a purchased website, you probably won’t sell it at a higher price than what you paid. Therefore, you should choose neglected or poorly optimized websites. If a website has been neglected by its owner, you can improve it by adding new content, updating the design and optimizing it for higher search rankings. Once improved, you can resell it at a higher price.

Signs of neglected or poorly optimized websites include:
• Articles or blog posts with an old “publish” date
• Low search rankings
• Web design that isn’t mobile friendly
• Page load times (PLT) of 4 seconds or longer
• Lots of broken links
• Pages with missing title tags and meta descriptions
• Multiple pages with the same content
• Monetized with ads or offers that are irrelevant to the website’s visitors
• Few backlinks

Not all neglected or poorly optimized websites are worth buying. A 500-page website that’s riddled with coding errors, for example, would be painstakingly difficult to fix. And if a website consists of nothing more than a basic theme with no real content, you’ll have a difficult time improving it. To increase your chance of success, purchase websites that aren’t fully optimized but have decent traffic and revenue. You should be able to view both the traffic logs and revenue documents of websites listed for sale on marketplaces and brokers.

Also, pay attention to websites’ operating costs. A website may earn $1,000 per month in affiliate sales. But if it costs $800 per month to advertise the site, it will only net $200 per month. Generally, you should purchase and flip websites that generate most or all their traffic from free channels like search engines, social media networks and referring sites.

Fix Up the Website

After purchasing a neglected or poorly optimized website, you should begin to fix it up. Go through each and every page to ensure that the content is properly formatted, the code is clean, and there’s a unique title tag and meta description present. If the website has an outdated design that’s not compatible with mobile devices, change it to responsive design.

The most important thing you can do when fixing a website to flip is search engine optimization (SEO). This includes publishing relevant content and building backlinks to achieve higher search rankings. As the website’s search rankings improve, it will generate more organic search traffic. And with more traffic, the site will generate more revenue, thereby increasing its value.

Use an Escrow

Always use an escrow when purchasing or reselling websites. An escrow is essentially a third-party entity that acts as a mediator of a transaction. The escrow holds the buyer’s money while awaiting confirmation that the website was delivered. Once the buyer has confirmed that he or she has received the website, the escrow releases the money to the seller.

Escrows are beneficial for both buyers and sellers. When buying a website, there’s a risk that the seller has provided false claims about his or her site, such as the amount of traffic or revenue it generates. And when selling a website, the buyer may attempt to reverse the transaction by claiming the website was never delivered. An escrow service prevents problems such as these by serving as a mediator between the buyer and seller. Some website marketplaces and brokers offer their own escrow service. Alternatively, you can use Escrow.com when flipping websites.

Track Your Website Flipping Expenses

Website flipping is a business, and you should treat it as such by tracking all expenses associated with buying and reselling your websites. The biggest expense you’ll incur is the initial purchase price of a website. But whether a site costs $100 or $10,000, you can write it off as a business-related expense on your taxes. Other expenses you may encounter when flipping websites include professional web design design services, content creation services, search engine optimization (SEO) services and advertising.

You probably won’t earn thousands of dollars on every website that you flip. Some flips will be more profitable than others. If you remain committed to the process, though, flipping websites can provide you with a stable and reliable source of income.

Nobody is immune

Anyone who uses the web has something that is worth stealing to someone. If you purchase goods online, your credit card details are there for the taking if you are not protecting them. Financial data is what concerns most people, but in fact access to almost any type of online account has a monetary value. For instance, if someone gains password access to your eBay account, it can allow them to redirect purchased goods to their address. There is an active black market in access to internet accounts in social media and elsewhere, with a set price range for each type (e.g. eBay, Twitter, Gmail, etc.). The price for access to each account may be low, but a major hacking operation will result in their being stolen in the thousands. For instance, a person’s email address and password can change hands for $20 or more if it gives access to enough of its owner’s accounts at such sites as Amazon, Hulu, etc.

Hackers and cyber-criminals don’t give warnings

Web security has to be preventive, otherwise you’re confined to damage limitation after the event. If you don’t have adequate protection, you’re unlikely to know that your computer has been infected or your accounts hacked until it’s too late. The whole point of hacking and cyber theft is to profit from it before the victim even knows it’s happening. Usually, the first you’ll hear of it is when you find unexplained charges on your credit card or withdrawals from your bank. Less than a third of victims of online fraud ever find out how their data was hacked or stolen. Make sure you have security software running before you do anything online.

All web activity poses a risk

Sticking to reputable websites is not a guarantee of immunity from fraud. Corporations can take care of their own cyber-security, but they can have no control over what their clients are doing to protect themselves at the other end. It’s true that all reputable e-commerce companies such as Amazon and eBay have state of the art protection of clients’ financial details that are entered on their sites when purchases are made. But a simple key-logger virus on an unprotected computer will record all of this data as you type it, and relay it to hackers who can proceed to use or sell it. Your security is your own responsibility.

Protection is not excessively expensive or complicated to use

Don’t be intimidated by the sheer number of security packages available. Unscrupulous companies may exploit people’s ignorance or paranoia to sell over-priced protection they don’t need (and which may be useless). Nor do you have to have technical skill to use and run security apps. Anything that’s worth buying will be reasonably user-friendly. Established, reputable specialists in the field like Norton, BitDefender and Panda offer suites of security software for less than $50 per year that will meet most people’s needs.

Security is a matter of constant vigilance

Staying safe goes well beyond protecting financial data, PINs and passwords. As people reveal more and more of their lives online and interact with strangers on social media, they are increasing the risk of being victims of crime. A good internet security policy includes commonsense precautions like not publicizing details of your private life, such as whether you live alone or at what times your house is vacant. A vigilant person will take care never to click on links from dubious sources. He or she will make sure unsolicited messages or pop-ups purporting to be from reputable companies such as Microsoft or Chrome are not fake (by checking the URL or email domain name). Being wary and skeptical has to become second nature. Staying safe is a matter of never letting your guard down.