Author: Ross
Should you let your website developer host your website?
When it comes to designing and programming websites, unless you have experience it is best to leave it up to the professionals. One little slip up could mean your site will not get listed in the search engine results on sites such as Google and Yahoo and this can often be hard to recover from.
You do have to put a certain amount of trust in your web developer in order to get the website up and running and to keep t running, but should you let them host the site too? It is far easier for the developer if they are able to host the site. Firstly you need to check that they have a good quality hosting account that is reliable and ideally based in the UK. You should also ask them about back ups to ensure that they are done often and if there is any limit on bandwidth (traffic to the website).
If you have a domain name then make sure that it is registered in your name regardless of who looks after it and maybe ask for a backup of the files for your website once it is complete so you always have a copy even if it is an older one.
Considerations when changing business emails
From time to time a business may need to change their email address or email addresses. This often happens when they change their domain name or if a company takes over their emails and sets them up with individual accounts.
It is very important to ensure that when you do change email addresses that you make sure emails going to the old address are not missed. If a company is managing your emails for you then they should be able to set a redirect up or at least an auto responder stating that the email address has changed. Ideally you want to do both, ensure that the email is redirected but notify the sender that your address has now changed so they can update their address book.
If you just bounce all emails back to your old address you may find that many people miss this email and therefore assume that the message has been sent successfully.
Always be sure to change your email address on all branding such as website, business cards, social media accounts etc as it can very easy to miss one of these. It may also be a good idea to email all of your customers and suppliers to inform them of the change of email address especially if different departments have their own dedicated email address.
Creating a secure website
If you are gathering information on your website, whether it be names and email addresses or card details, you need to ensure that you offer your customers a certain level of security. This is often done by the programmer when the site is being built. Programming should not be taken lightly and needs to be secure in all aspects to ensure that your data is protected and that your website offers protection against hackers.
One of the main issues arise when a programmer create a checkout process or form submission that is not built in the way it should. This can leave the process open to hackers who will be able to access the information that is being passed through to third parties (such as PayPal0 or stored in a database.
Password security is vital and making sure that your customers chose secure passwords for their account on your website should also be enforced. This is why many websites will ask you to make your password using a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers and letters and even symbols.
Using the latest techniques that have been tried and tested can help with the over security of your website and ensuring that you have a regular backup can help fix any issues that arise quickly.
Using software to track your competitors
We all have competitors out there who often rank above us on the search engines and seem to be able to attract more visitors. But to a business owner it can be very frustrating and sometime shard to understand why a business that is smaller than us in terms of staff and turn over etc, can be doing so well on the search engines.
The search engines all have their own ranking algorithm to sort out who appears where when a phrase is searched for. Geographical location has recently become a big player in this area, meaning if you are trying to target locations other than where you are based, you may have to work that bit harder.
There are many tools and software out there that will allow you to track your competitors in terms of their rankings, back links, page rank and content. Using these tools can sometimes give you an overview of what they may be doing that pushes them in front of you. It is not always to say what they are doing is correct though, and taking on techniques that could be seen as spamming could actually get your site black listed and removed from the search engines altogether.
IT support
If you are struggling with IT then there are a number of places you can go to get help and advice, the internet is full of tutorials and forums that can often quickly give you a solution to an issue or problem you have but you need to think carefully before taking all advice as gospel. If for example you are looking in to ways to clean up your PC then be very wary about downloading links to software from within blogs / forums or by following advice telling you to make advance system changes. Sometimes these can cause new issues or cause a loss of files and folders which can open up a whole host of problems.
If you need help with the internet then you may be able to speak to a computer specialist or IT specialist who will be able to talk you thorough what you need to do. Never accept help from an unsolicited caller offering you help with your PC as these are often scams.
Using IT in your job
Historically, many tasks involving admin within an office were done using pen and paper. Over time as new technology came out this advanced and more and more admin is done using IT.
Using IT in your job can often help you do a task quicker but sometimes it can also make it look more professional and eliminate many errors.
If for example you have a list of numbers and figures that you need to add up, working it out on paper or even using a calculator is often open to errors and can be quite time consuming. Using a program such as Excel will allow you to get the system to automatically add the column up and give you a total at the bottom.
There are thousands of templates available often within the software or online for downloading, that will give you a base to work from. If for example you needed to write a letter, you could download a letter template and then fill in all the information you need to.
Becoming a better programmer
The job of a website programmer is to create the code that allows the site to look and function as it should. Many people think websites are created in a similar way to which you would create a presentation on Microsoft Publisher or in Word, but this is only true for very basic, often cheap plug and play sites.
Sites that are created by programmers include a number of different types of code to allow the correct layout and workings of the site. Programming is a skill and it can be learnt in a number of ways. Some programmers go to university or college to take a course in web programming where as others learn on the job. Building websites yourself is the best way to become an experienced programmer and the more you can build the better you will become. You may encounter problems along the way but each time you earn how to fix an issue it will help you again next time.
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The cost of CRM systems
CRM systems vary a lot in costs mostly depending on what you want the system to be able to do. Some CRM systems are used just to store information about customers such as name, address, phone numbers but others also record previous products or services the customer has bought, interests and birthdays etc. Many CRM systems can also be linked in to an invoicing system or have an invoicing system built in to allow this al be linked to a single customer record. This means when you look up a customer you can see all their contact details, copies of invoices and balances outstanding etc. This can make it much easier to manage an account and offer your customer the most up to date in formation quickly.
Often systems are charged at an upfront cost and then additional amounts per month dependant on how many users you want and the functionality you want within the CRM system.
Is your computer powerful enough?
When looking at what PC or laptop to buy, you do need to understand a bit of the technical information to ensure that you purchase one that is going to be powerful enough for what you want.
Some IT retailers are very knowledgeable and will be able to explain to you what spec you need based on what you are going to be using the computer for, but others may not advise you correctly and often do not fully understand the spec themselves.
For example, if you want a computer for gaming then the Memory and Graphics card and processor are probably going to be important factors. If you are wanting a PC or laptop mostly for using Word or Excel ect then you can probably get away with a cheaper model than a gaming one but if you are wanting to install Windows 10 then you will need a min of 2GB of RAM ideally at least 3GB.