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3 Ways to Secure your Business Site

protect your business
protect your business

Image courtesy of Salvatore VuonoFreeDigitalPhotos.net 

How To Protect yourself and your customers – is your business site secure?

Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, an e-commerce site never shuts down. Though this is an excellent advantage for late-night shoppers, it also leaves you more vulnerable to online theft.

Hackers can find virtual “back doors” and access emails, client information and even financial records. Fortunately, it’s easy and relatively inexpensive to secure your business site and protect it from unwanted intruders. Below are three tips and new technologies all ecommerce providers should consider implementing immediately.

Change your password

One of the best ways to keep your information safe is completely free and takes under a minute. Have you changed your password lately? The most popular passwords in 2012 were password, 12345 and 123456. Even if yours isn’t quite that bad, it probably doesn’t have the ideal combination of length, symbols, upper and lower cases, and numbers. Attaching it to a personal interest, hometown or pet’s name is another bad idea—much of that information is easily found on social media. To create an impenetrable password that you won’t have to leave around on a sticky note, create a silly sentence and use the acronym. For example, “Selling four english muffins can bring in lots of money” becomes “S4emcbilo$”. You won’t forget it, and no one will ever guess it.

Consider switching to a VPS

As businesses grow (and space becomes limited), many turn to cloud servers to host and store data. A virtual private server, or VPS, provides a similar service with one key difference — your site is not shared. As a result, it is considered more secure and you can implement unique firewalls and protections. Companies like Rackspace offer isolated cloud networks and charge per data used, making it an affordable switch for businesses of any size.

Protect emails with SSL

Most email providers, even unpaid services, now offer an SSL option. Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol for encrypting information sent online. In layman’s terms, this means that your emails are scrambled to avoid eavesdropping. If your email is associated with your business site (yourname@business.com), then you can contact your web host to work through an SSL instead. Recent problems with the system have prompted businesses to turn to add-ons to verify network connections when visiting new sites. For most people’s purposes, the best way to prepare for that situation is trusting your email to a company with 24/7, easy to contact tech support.

According to a 2005 article by techies at IBM, online security is based on confidentiality, availability, and integrity. Not much has changed in the years since then. Your site needs to be hard for outsiders to access, easy for you and your customers to access, and it needs to maintain its information and look. Sadly, the most common way to determine the areas worth securing are when they cause problems. A compromised email or crashed server gets immediate attention. The three preventative measures above, however, are a good start on a blanket security check that will cover most of the common offenders. From there, you can determine what other steps you’ll need to completely lock down the shop.

February 25, 2013by Dawn Altnam
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Business Blog, Business Plans, Start Up Business

The Super-fast Guide To Starting A Business

start a business
start a business

Super-fast Starting A Business Image courtesy of Ambro FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

Just how easy can it be to start your own business? Starting a business can be relatively easy if you set your action plan in advance. These super-fast business start up tips will help you get your idea get off the ground by saving you time and money.

There are several key factors that you need to consider as you begin your business journey. Starting a business successfully while keeping an eye on your budget will require a fair amount of legwork on your part, but it will pay off in the longrun. Here are 5 tips to keep you on the right path and help you set up your own business – super-fast!

#1 Scrutinize Finances

The main thing to look at is going to be your financials. Are you going to have funding from a lender such as a bank or investor, or do you have enough capital to begin your business on your own? Starting your business with a loan is not always the best option. There are endless possibilities for obtaining funds to start up, and before you decide which route to take, ensure that you have explored them all. Don’t forget to factor in enough capital to survive personally too – you need to have enough savings that your personal life such as your mortgage and all other expenses are paid for without problem.

#2 Set Your Plan

The business plan is next. In fact the business plan is going to include your financials from step 1- what you can purchase, what inventory you can have on stock, what you can rent, lease or buy outright and many other things involved in your type of business. An online business may require less investment, so keep this in mind too. Perhaps set a trial with an online version of your business if bricks and mortar are too high an investment initially.

#3 Ooze Confidence

Confidence is key with business start up. You never go in with the thought of failure, but of success. You still need to be realistic, which is why the above issues were mentioned in terms of lenders and investors. Still, you need to go in with the mindset that you will succeed without problems. You could do this by having a standup business plan – map out your pitch and your ‘sales talk’ and practice it in front of friends and family. You will always seem much more professional with a smooth pitch, and this will help you network and make contacts for your business in the future.

#4 Be A Marketing Maven

Marketing factors are definitely important and mapping out your marketing strategy before you set sail is always a good idea. The Internet is a great place to market if you know how to do it. Look for local courses or seminars which can help you with internet marketing and social media for your business. With the current evolution of online marketing including content marketing you could possibly factor in costs for hiring a professional at the outset. You can always take over later drafting written content and creating new campaigns.

#5 Choose Your Power Team

Lastly, any business start up needs the right team. Even if you do not have funds for an employee, you should have funds for a legal adviser, a marketing team, an accountant, and ideally a business mentor or expert. Check free or low cost options by speaking with your local chamber of commerce. They sometimes offer free specialists who might help you think through all the steps, and will be aware of any grants or help available to start ups in your area.

Summary

One final thing to remember when starting your business is be sure to do the leg work. Will the product or service you offer actually sell? Check your local competition, conduct surveys, and determine what pricing structure would suit best. Ask lots of questions and seek the opinion of others. Be prepared for the unexpected and always have an idea of next steps should an initial idea or strategy not go to plan.

February 25, 2013by Caroline Baxter
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