Category: IT
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.
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.
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.
Why is IT a good industry to work in?
IT stands for Information Technology and is essentially working with computers. It includes working with the hardware of a computer along with the software and many people also include work on the World Wide Web as a section within IT.
A job in IT can be very rewarding, often these types of jobs are quite well paid and often the job will also be quite varied allowing you to do different tasks and manage different challenges every day. Jobs in It are said to be amongst the most secure, as technology is ever evolving and more and more people and businesses are turning to computers to carry out tasks within their business. This means that for the foreseeable future there will always be the need for people within the IT industry. If you have a flare for IT and enjoy working on computers then you can often get yourself a promotion quite quickly if you are willing to learn and work hard.
Checking website rankings
If you have a website and you want to get a lot of traffic to it then you need to understand how website rankings work on the search engine sites such as Google or Yahoo. You may hear a marketing company talk about SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is a process which is carried out to a site to improve its presence on the search engine results pages.
You need to be able to track your web rankings in order to see if the site is improving. Depending on how many keywords or phrases you wish to track, you could do this manually but it can be a little time consuming. There are some companies that offer a ranking software package that allows you to add keywords for a website and then it will go and check where it is in terms of positioning on the search engines.
Working in IT
IT is a massive industry and is growing day by day. With technology advancing every day, there is always a call for more IT staff. Many companies are switching from paper systems to computer based systems and the ones that already had this are now going toward cloud software.
If you are looking for a job in the IT sector you will need to have a good general knowledge of PC’s and how they work. Depending on what area you want to go in to you may need experience or additional qualifications.
Most companies have some sort of IT department or IT staff so you can often get in to an IT role within another industry. Rates of pay vary drastically depending on what job role you apply for. Full time Entry/Junior positions can start from around £13 -£18K per year DOE, whereas head of IT departments and senior developers can easily earn upwards of one hundred thousand pounds.
Keyword research for online marketing
Online marketing is a huge area that there are many different elements too. One of the biggest is Search Engine Optimisation and this is effectively improving your site in certain ways to get in moved up on the search engine results pages.
The first thing you need to do when looking to invest in Search Engine Optimisation is to decide you key market in terms of locations and products / services you wish to promote. Once you have a list of these you can then start to decide on your main keywords and phrases. If you are a builder that lives in Kent for example and you are wanting to target local people then you would have keywords that include the areas within Kent as well as the services that you offer.
Keyword research is vital in online marketing and can show you not only where the main competition is and what you may need to start to compete. But also if there are any niche phrases that you can target and gain positions on the search engines easily.
Keeping your IT equipment and software up to date
When you are running a business it is essential to keep your equipment and software that is running on it up to date. You my not need to buy the latest release of software every time it comes out but you should investigate what the new version offers to be able to decide if it is worth while you having. Very often new software includes security updates which may be vital to your business. A great example of this is anti-virus software. This is something that should always be active and up to date as using the internet or accessing files without it can be absolutely detrimental to your business and possibly clients, should you get a virus.
Recently some software providers such as the Adobe Creative Suite has changed the way it sells its products. Rather than the traditional boxed CD package they used to offer then are now offering the software as a cloud subscription based service meaning that you sign up to their service and use the software paying either annually or monthly. This means that when an update is released they can easily distribute it to your instantly.