Is your password easy for a computer to guess!?

Tags

pass-phrases, passphrases, secure passwords

We’ve recently just gone through a situation where the security of one of our websites had been somewhat comprised. And while we will never be 100% certain as to how the site was accessed by this annoyance it did make us look closely at ways we could make the most of the security measures that we use on the web.

The most blindingly obvious was the integrity of our passwords because as a general rule we do what most people do and use one of three very simple passwords for all of our online logins.  Why?? We all know this is bad thing to do but we do it anyway! My justification is that I have so many accounts online that it would be impossible to remember a separate password for every one of these.

And as we all saw last week the compromising of LinkedIn saw many email address/password logins taken by hackers (one being ours). The point being that when this login combo is the same as what you use on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or any of your other online accounts, you can see how far reaching your vulnerability lies. They have access to one then they have access to all.  And apparently it’s not hard for a hacker to make a computer programme that will try known username and password combo’s against various well known sites.

So what makes a secure password?

Most people (myself included) are guilty of choosing a password that is very easy to remember, likely based upon a combination of names, dates or a simple letter/number sequences. And as mentioned above we tend to use the same password over again, usually in combination with our main email address.

Simple password: katrina1234

Easy to remember but easy for a computer to figure out.

Last year the top five most used passwords were:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/

Though we have been told for many years that the best password is one that uses a random assortment of small letters, capital letters, numbers and symbols. And the reason we don’t always do this is that they’re absolutely impossible to remember. One trick we’ve all seen to make this a little easier is to take a normal password like katrina123# and replace some of the characters to ‘make it harder’ like K4tr!Na123#.

Medium password: K4tr!Na123#

Hard to remember and moderate for a computer to figure out.

One suggestion that we came across while researching the best type of password to have is a ‘pass-phrase’. A pass-phrase is a password that uses 4 or more words, with or without spaces in between. It’s to do with the amount of ‘entropy’ your password generates, the more entropy, the more complex it is to crack. In technical terms, within information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. So the more ‘characters’ your pass-phrase, the more entropy it has. For those of you with a desire to understand more about entropy, try looking here and here.

Now I don’t pretend for a minute to understand the science behind it but just believe when I say that a password using say 4 separate and unrelated words is a lot harder for a computer to crack than one word made up of a mixture of caps, small letters, numbers and symbols. AND the bonus – it is easier for a human to remember #winwin.

Strong password: super chickens hover lightly

Silly enough to remember and very hard for a computer to figure out.

So my suggestion is to set about changing your passwords to a pass-phrase where possible.  Make it a string of words that are silly enough for you to remember.  If you need to note them down, just note down the first letter of each word in the phrase or use an online password manager to help keep track of your passwords.

Please note, not all sites will let you use pass-phrases, they will force you still to use the ‘random’ passwords often with limits on the number characters used. Just remember to change your passwords from time to time and make them as safe as you dare!

Also, no passwords in this article actually belong to me or any other living person I know.

More information: How to protect your company’s password (Mashable), Passphrase (Wikipedia), The Great Debates: Pass Phrases vs. Passwords. Pt 1 of 3 (Technet)

Resource: Mailchimp.com for E-newsletters

Tags

email marketing, mailchimp

Many of my clients often ask how they would go about  sending out email newsletters to their own customer list. One online service that I’ve been using as have several of my clients is www.mailchimp.com. It’s easy to use, offers a pay-as-you-go payment plan, brilliant for small businesses. It has stacks of excellent features to help you maintain and build your contact lists, create nice looking and effective email newsletters, and has a fully comprehensive campaign tracking and reports facility. Plus is a brilliant way of driving traffic to your website!

mailchimp.com email newsletter online service

Using email marketing, that is keeping in contact with your customers via email, is a great way to open communication channels and keep your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds.  If done well, it’s a really effective means to increase your brand/business exposure to those new and existing customers that might need your services now and in the future.

Email newsletters are perfect for promoting your products and services in a timely and appropriate fashion, letting customers know about any new offers/promotions/developments within your business, sharing customer feedback and testimonials, and just generally keeping your name out there.

Mailchimp is an excellent tool to help with your email marketing efforts.  It’s main benefits are:

• the creation of professional looking emails that work with all the different types of email clients such as Outlook, gmail, hotmail, AOL and so forth, as often these will visually render the same email differently, some will remove images, some will only show text, others are very strict about what constitutes spam. Mailchimp allows you to create emails using their own tried and tested email templates, or with a little knowledge you’re able to customise these to create something truly unique.
• awesome list management capabilities. Mailchimp allows you to manage as many contact lists as you need, letting you create lists on the fly, uploading existing customers lists or even putting special code onto your website so any new ‘newsletter’ join-ups are added automatically to the relevant Mailchimp list (that is providing you abide by the current opt-in contact list regulations that stipulate all contacts on a list have knowingly agreed to opt-in to receiving your email newsletters – Data Protection Act 1998). Mailchimp list management also allows for such things as automatic and recorded unsubscribes and list segmentation.
• A fully comprehensive report and tracking centre. Each campaign sent has it’s own set of reports to tell you how many and who opened your email, how many bounced, how many regarded your email as spam, when and where emails were opened, how many were forwarded using easy to read graphics with the ability to download as an Excel spreadsheet. And all against industry benchmarks. One tool that many of my clients have found very useful is the A/B split testing that helps determine the best practice for their email campaigns. It also allows for Google Analytics integration to better track website clicks.
• Many more features including data security and privacy, maximum deliverability and plenty of useful help and support.

The best bit for small businesses is that it is free to use for up to lists of 500.  After that you simply go onto using one of their pay-monthly programmes or the pay-as-you-go plan where you purchase credits as and when you need them.

You can read more about www.mailchimp.com at their website.  Providing that you aren’t spamming customers with irrelevant and too frequent material and that your email content sends suitable and well-timed messages to customers who have opted-in to receive them, using an online service such as Mailchimp is a truly hassle-free way to start connecting with your customers and is superbly cost-effective.

You can find out more about email marketing here:

• http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/
• http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073919418
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing
• http://www.audettemedia.com/blog/email-marketing-tips/
• http://www.emailbrain.com/eb/resources.shtml

Good luck!

Don’t underestimate your keywords

Tags

keywords, search engine optimisation

The key to a successful online presence and an effective search engine optimisation strategy is by having relevant keywords. Very simply put the best keywords are those that most accurately reflect the words and phrases that your online visitors will use to search online for your website.

By creating your own list of relevant keywords you’ll find it easier to tap into your pool of online customers. You’re likely to find that your website traffic will increase and it will be far more targeted and therefore they will be far more likely to want to engage in a relationship with your business.

WHAT EXACTLY ARE KEYWORDS?

Typically keywords are words and phrases that people type into search engines to find goods, services and information. Much research tells us that most people when searching use more than one word to find something on the internet, and that they will keep refining their words until they come across a page of search engine results that gives a list of website links that satisfies what they’re looking for. If this is the way that you search online it is more than likely that your customers are using this very same process too.

HOW ARE THESE KEYWORDS USED?

Once you have a good list, your keywords will contribute to your websites search engine optimisation and ultimately help shape your online strategy. There doesn’t seem to be any hard and fast rule about how many keywords that you should have but I normally suggest to clients that a good start is to create a 20-30. Your keywords can then be used to help build your website’s text copy, provide relevant search engine optimisation tags within your website’s code, help to develop social networking content like blogging, tweets and other online commentary.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines use keywords from your website text content and specially tagged code to establish a ‘theme’ that helps it to rank each page of your website. Amongst other indicators, the strength of your ‘theme’ combined with relevant and credible back links leading back to your site will establish your rank within the search engines for your keywords. Most often a web designer/developer would implement the search engine specific tags within the site’s code that is unless your website’s content management facility allows you access.

You can see any website’s meta-tags by clicking on the View or Page menu’s in your browser then selecting the option that says, ‘source’ or ‘page source’. The code will open in your text editor.

The tags to watch out for are:

Title tag: looks like this <title>words in here</title> Currently the most important of the in-code optimisation tags. The title tag is revealed in the very top blue bar of your internet browser. Typically organisations use this field to simply state their business name. Ideally place 2-3 of your most important keywords/keyphrases here providing they are relevant to the information displayed on that page.

Meta-tags: These are placed within the code of your website. The meta-tag ‘keywords’ will simply list the keywords relevant to the individual webpage they are on and the meta-tag ‘description’ will retain a 1-2 sentence statement about your business and the content of the individual page that utilises 2-3 of your keywords. The search engines prefer that the description is informative and not hard-sell.

Alt tags and link ‘titles’: You’ll know if a webpage has these enabled by running your mouse over any on-page links, menu links or images and having a small yellow rectangular box appear with text inside. Not only do these help with search engine optimisation by listing relevant keyword(s) but provide sensible non-visual navigation cues for website accessibility.

H1 tags and Bolding: As well as making it easier for visitors to digest chunks of text on your website, using headers and bolding of words helps the search engines to determine better the ‘theme’ of your page and therefore helps with your search engine rankings. H1 to H6 are simply six standard ‘codes’ that web designers/developers will use to create section and paragraph headings.

Text Content: Your list of keywords will be crucial in helping you create the text copy for each of your webpages. As well as providing useful information to visitors the search engines will read the text on your website and look for any similar keywords that are used frequently in a natural and organic way. Search engines are very clever in recognising when a website has simply listed all their keywords over and over again solely for cheating the optimisation process and they will either ignore it completely or black list the page from their results.

Online presence outside of your website

Your keywords can also help better your online presence outside of your website. Here I’m talking in terms of social media and social networking. For example, if you’re registered with LinkedIn, the online business networking directory your profile should be littered with your main keywords. If you have a business related blog or use a micro-blogging tool like Twitter, your list of keywords can help shape your blog topics. Or if you say use Facebook for business, again these have opportunity for relevant keyword placement, and providing all of these social media sites link back to your own website, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much they can help with your search engine rankings.

SO HOW DO YOU CREATE A USEFUL LIST OF KEYWORDS?

Getting together a list of keywords isn’t difficult but to be successful does require a small amount of time spent researching and refining the words. Let’s take for example a local website that sells DIY hardware.

I have found that typically when first asked to provide a list of keywords a business will send a list of between 10-15 singular words that they feel are relevant to their business. In this case, I may have received a list that said ‘hammers, nails, fences, paint, screws, timber, tools, drills, lights, bulbs, bathrooms’.

Imagine for a minute if someone in a search engine simply types ‘nails‘ what kind of website is likely to be thrown up in the results. A quick search reveals mostly website’s about fingernails, nail varnish and nail care. Nothing at all on the first page about fencing or building nails. And let’s face it, the majority of us won’t go past the first page of search results before refining our search.

So immediately we can see that unless you’re an corporate multi-national who’s very image is ‘nails’ or your business operates in a very unusual and niche industry, then your website isn’t going to do well with singular words.

The first step in creating your keywords is to make a generic list, then think about the journey that someone will take to find your business online – a journey that can often take days of online research as opposed to impulsive offline purchasing.

Gary Reid from Search Works, (taken from a recent .net article) says that the first type of search is called ‘navigational’ where a search query will include a brand name, a web address or a company name. The second type of search is called ‘informational’ where highly generic phrases will be used for example ‘fence palings’ or ‘concrete nails’.  And the final leg of the journey is called a ‘transactional’ search where typically 3-5 word phrases are used to really narrow down the search, for instance, ‘white porcelain door handles’ or ‘brand model colour size location’.  The key is to have a list of keywords that represent each stage of this journey and that are specific to each page of your website. It’s worth noting that the search engines when evaluating your webpages don’t like to see too much repetition.

Once you have a list the next step is to ask friends, family and customers for their input. There is no harm in asking customers how they found you or what they might do to search for you online (if they didn’t know your business name).  More often than not when I help customers with this part of their keyword creation, they find that outsiders to their business will use different words to the jargon that they use on a daily basis. So it is really important to make sure that you’re using the words that your customers would use and not simply what you assume.

The next step is to take this bigger list and try these out in a search engine to see what type of results that you get.  This is excellent for many reasons, you’ll instantly see what works and what doesn’t as the results will either show your type of business or not. Once you start finding keywords that work, you’re likely to find your online competitors and can then look at their websites and see what keywords that they’re using by looking at all the optimisation factors as listed above.

Again you can see any website’s meta-tags by clicking on the View or Page menu’s in your browser then selecting the option that says, ‘source’ or ‘page source’.

Now that you have a pretty good list, you can also make use of many online tools to check your keywords for popularity and frequency of use and for suggestions as to alternative but useful keywords that you may not have come across. For example:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
http://www.seotoolset.com/cgi-bin/checktraffic.cgi

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

I’VE GOT A LIST OF KEYWORDS SO NOW WHAT?

Set about having all the search engine optimisation tips above implemented. Look at your website content – does it need an overhaul, do the words need rewriting? Have your web designer/developer add or refresh the ‘tags’ that need improving if you’re unable to. Look at ways you can expand your web presence past your website through social networking alternatives and use your keywords to help with the content of these. Take time to review your list once in a while, keep checking that they’re relevant to your business and that they’re working for you.

Have Google Analytics installed on your website, it’s an excellent tool and will provide some feedback on keywords used to find your site and it’s FREE.

As Gary Reid said, ‘blindly optimising for a set of keywords is a quick way to waste time and money’. Certainly in today’s economy making use of inexpensive marketing techniques is crucial and having smart keywords will definitely go some way in helping to avoid wasting time and money. Particularly for small businesses it will help in quickly targeting your online marketing efforts so those very important customers who are out there really searching for you and your business will find you and not your competitors.

Don’t stop marketing – budget ways to max your mix in a recession

Tags

low cost marketing, recession marketing

We’re proud to introduce our first GUEST blogger, Tracey Baty from three60 marketing and pr, an East Yorkshire based small and rural business creative marketing specialist.

I was recently invited by Katrina Thompson  to talk to a women’s networking group www.meet-yorkshire.co.uk about marketing tips for small businesses during a recession.

My first tip was more of a plea – Don’t stop marketing!  I used information from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) to illustrate that, although 45% of companies reduced their marketing budgets in the first quarter of 2009, 11% of companies planned to increase spend and it would be these businesses who would win out in the end. 

Jim Connolly bears this out in a recent blog post when he discovered that businesses who not only survived, but thrived during the last recession had one thing in common – they continued to invest in the key areas of their businesses; like marketing. 

As the CIM’s (Chartered Institue of Marketing) Mark Stuart says, “Customers do not stop buying in a downturn: they just buy differently.”

Having hopefully convinced the ladies of the need to step up their marketing activity, I went on to share some tips that have worked for me and my clients.  I encouraged the audience to consider low cost ways to raise awareness of their businesses and recounted my own experiences about three60 branded cycle paniers (www.bikebins.com – not sure if the idea is to promote, or not!) whilst holidaying in France – my web stats showed a marked increase in French visitors for those two weeks in August!  Not only that, but did you know you can claim 20p a mile for cycling to client meetings?

We also talked about the opportunities that recent journalist redundancies on regional newspapers afforded small business owners with a story to tell.  You can either write a short piece about the story yourself (take a look at the papers you’re targeting to get a feel for how the journalists write) and submit it to the paper (ideally with a picture of about 1MB), or call the paper or radio station and tell them about your story.  Try to choose a story that will interest their readers/listeners and take the opportunity to promote your business on the back of it.  For example, a Hull couple made headlines after the 2007 floods forced them out of their home and made them re-evaluate their lives.  Aged 50plus, they subsequently resigned from their careers and have launched their own business.

We’re very lucky to be business owners in rural East Yorkshire as we’re a very tight knit community.  Research amongst my clients suggests that they are gaining business as the recession deepens as we’re all encouraged to pull together, shop local and safeguard livelihoods and communities.  I encouraged the ladies to maximise this opportunity and to consider collaborations with other complementary businesses.  For example, the celebrated East Yorkshire Wildlife artist, Robert Fuller, is launching his latest exhibition on Father’s Day and is treating Dads to a glass of ale from nearby Wold Top Brewery.  Cheers!

Given that it was a networking meeting, there was no doubt about the extensive low cost opportunities that all types of networking affords small business owners, but the ladies were asked to consider the benefits of social media as part of their marketing armoury.  Many use Facebook and similar social networking sites to interact with friends and family but had not considered using such tools to raise awareness of their businesses and drive traffic to their websites.  A friend of mine was recently encouraged to join the online business network ecademy and within hours his business had grabbed the attention of a BNI Director in Sydney.  The result? They’re meeting up in Sydney when the client visits for a holiday next month!   

So whatever you do – don’t stop marketing! Make the most of the many low-cost but effective marketing opportunities available to you and your business.

Tracey Baty is the founder of three60 marketing and pr and specialises in helping small and rural businesses to grow through creative marketing communications.