For the last month or so, a bunch of 50 brave (or foolish?) volunteers have opened themselves up to a world of spam. Security company McAfee gave each of them a new laptop and email address, and instructed them to use the internet unprotected for 30 days.
I reckon this experiment would have been quite fun to take part in. Participants were encouraged to click on whatever they liked online, just to see what would happen. As you can imagine, throwing caution to the wind online produces some interesting results.
For instance, you can probably sympathise with that ‘what if…’ feeling which occurs when one of those pop-up windows advertising an unbelievable offer appears.
You know that whatever it says (usually that you’ve won millions of dollars, or something similar), it’s almost certainly a scam. And you daren’t click it because to do so will probably bring your computer to its knees and pass your email address on to purveyors of all sorts of embarrassing wares. Read the rest of this entry »
Previously, we looked at how to write good copy for the web. In the latest of our videos, I’ve ventured in front of the camera to give you a quick run-down on writing sales copy. That’s right: how to encourage people to buy from your online shop.
It’s not all about the hard sell: by being honest and offering genuine value to your customers, you can boost sales so you’re happy - and so are they.
We’ve mentioned previously how important it is to keep an eye on the expiry dates of your domain names.
But in case you haven’t got the message yet, here’s a high-profile domain name expiry story to hammer home the point.
As reported by The Register, this time it was the turn of Emirates. The Dubai-based airline managed to let its emirates.com domain name expire earlier this week. As a result, instead of being able to book seats on the enormous new Airbus A380, visitors to the company’s website saw a generic domain name parking page. Oops.
PayPal is one of the world’s biggest and well-known online payment systems. Thousands of online shops use the company’s services to allow people to make purchases online, so they should know a thing or two about what makes an ecommerce site successful.
We asked John-Paul Savant, Director of Product and Strategy for PayPal, for his tips on ecommerce and how to build an online shop.
What sort of planning do you need to do before launching an online store?
“You need to consider how your business works and how you’re going to build and update your website. You also have to think about how you’ll take payment.
“If you’re starting out, it’s often easier to go with a proven, off-the-shelf package. These can be very cost effective and generally give you immediate access to templated designs and shopping cart features. Read the rest of this entry »
Regular readers will have noticed that this blog disappeared a week or so ago. Visitors to this page would have seen a ‘page not found’ message.
The reason for our absence is simple. We had to take the blog offline double-quick when we discovered it had been hacked.
Someone (probably an automated script) had gained access, adding lots of link spam. These links were promoting the kind of products you often get advertised in spam emails.
When viewing the blog normally, you wouldn’t have noticed any difference. But these hidden links were there, advertising all sorts of questionable items. By the way, if you’re here looking for them, we don’t sell any sort of pharmaceutical products.
How it happened
We use WordPress to power our blog. It’s dead easy to use and very powerful - that’s why loads of other blogs use it too. In this case, it looks like the hackers took advantage of a bug in one of the WordPress extensions we had installed and used it to gain access.
The only safe way forward was to assume the worst - that the blog had been completely compromised, and somebody had access to make whatever changes to it they wanted. This might not have been the case, but we didn’t want to risk any further problems. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve settled on a domain name. You know it’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your website, so you’ve done your research.
Your chosen name describes what your site is about. It’s snappy, memorable and - most importantly - is available.
After registering the domain, you might might want to consider picking up some common variations on it too. This will make it easier for people to find your site, and minimises the chance of anyone else trading on your name (we’ve written about typo-squatters in the past).
Many guides to choosing a domain name say something like ‘register common variations on your name’ and leave it at that. But which common variants are worth forking out for and which will just be a waste of money? Read on to find out. Read the rest of this entry »
Increasing consumer confidence is a must for businesses and individuals that make money from selling online. However, the latest statistics from the Office of Fair Trading highlight that even many of the UK’s top online retailers are operating illegally - and not in the best interests of the consumer.
To promote a code of best practice, we’ve teamed up with a online shop accreditation scheme, SafeBuy, to raise awareness and educate companies which trade online.
As part of this, all 123-reg ecommerce customers can claim 6 months of SafeBuy membership completely free (terms apply, of course).
SafeBuy is the only online shop accreditation scheme approved to Stage 1 by the OFT. When you join the scheme, you’ll get:
Pre-packaged terms and conditions. You can use these on your ecommerce website, alongside the SafeBuy logo. It’s worth using them because they’re definitely legal and provide protection for your online shop, as well as giving your customers a fair deal. It also solves the problem of where to get terms and conditions for your website from. Many online shops just copy and paste their terms and conditions from other sites - this is illegal in itself.
The chance to display the SafeBuy logo on your site. This recognisable logo reassures customers that your site complies with the SafeBuy code of practice - a set of rules ensuring consumers and retailers alike get a fair deal.
Custom search on your site
If you have a content heavy site with lots of pages and regularly updated content, keeping it all easily accessible to site visitors is tricky. Rather than having to code your own site tool, simply copy and paste Google’s custom search code in to your site and you will magically have a site search tool. http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
HTML editor
If you are ready to upgrade from WYSIWYG template software and you are frustrated with notepad, a great free HTML editor with built in FTP is coffeecup.com’s HTML editor 9.http://www.coffeecup.com/free-editor/.
Free images
Creating an interesting site with no pictures can be a pain, but it is not always worth shelling out for the license to use a picture. A great source of free pictures can be found through Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources
CSS templates
Just because I know how to use a paint brush doesn’t mean I can paint, and that’s true of graphical web design tools. Rather than hacking away for hours to make your website look presentable, leave it to the pro’s and download a free template that is ready to go. http://www.opendesigns.org/ http://www.freecsstemplates.org/
Click on “Read the rest of this entry »” for links to:
Passwords and codes are a part of everyday life now. There is no escaping it. However, is are you choosing ones which are strong enough to defeat the new bread of password hacking cyber criminals?
When you have to put a password into multiple systems many times a day, it can be tempting to choose a really simple one, then never change it. Worse, you might write it down on a piece of paper. I’ll put my hands up - I used to be guilty of this.
However, when these passwords can be all that’s protecting your email or your bank account, it’s worth taking the effort to make them hard to break. I’ve learnt there are a few tips that will help you make your passwords stronger and foil those pesky password hacking criminals.
It can be very tempting to use a word or number that’s easy to remember as your password. However, these are very easy to crack, putting your private information at risk from. Here are some tips on how to make a strong, hacking-resistant password that will help improve your security on the internet. Read the rest of this entry »
In the past, perhaps this statement wasn’t true for every new company. But these days, virtually all start-ups should have an online presence from day one. There are plenty of things your business can do with a website: advertise your services, sell products online or communicate with existing customers. You can even send people there for more information and use it to gather sales leads.
No grand plans for your site? It’s worth creating one anyway, just so something meaningful appears when a prospective customer types your company name into Google.
Where to start?
As tempting as it may be, don’t rush in headlong and start building your site. You’ll end up wasting time and money. Instead, plan carefully, thinking about:
What your site is for
Come up with some clear objectives. Do you want to sell your products and services online? Will the site provide help for existing customers? Is it going to be a simple ‘shop window’ to provide you with warm sales leads? Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve mentioned previously how important it is to keep an eye on the expiry dates of your domain names.
Regular readers will have noticed that this blog disappeared a week or so ago. Visitors to this page would have seen a ‘page not found’ message.
You’ve settled on a domain name. You know it’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your website, so you’ve done your research.
