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By Amelia Vargo in Featured

SEO2We have written about the benefits of quality over quantity links in SEO ad nauseum, but I do still think it is a subject worthy of discussion.

As Kaspar Szymanski, Search Quality Strategist at Google says in his recent blog post: Quality links to your site, published on Monday – “a quality link is always going to be worth much more than a hundred ‘spammy’ links.” So, how does a person determine which links are ‘quality’ and which are not?

Well, I think a lot of this comes down to experience. When I first started dabbling in SEO a few years ago, (and, my, how the discipline has changed since then!) I know I fell into some pretty easy traps and pitfalls when it came to link building. One thing that I do know about link building is that it isn’t easy. Whichever way you come to look at it, ‘easy’ is not a word I would use to describe it. Not that it’s technically very difficult, of course, just that it’s time consuming and requires patience, dedication, and to some extent a certain amount of luck.

By Titus-Hoskins in Featured

Top Rankings Maintenance For Google

Over the many years of marketing online, one point has been driven home to me time and again, you must not only get those top rankings in Google for your chosen keyword phrases – but you must maintain them. In other words, you must not only get those top rankings but you must keep them at the top.

Rankings maintenance, link maintenance… call it what you will, for most competitive keywords in Google, if you want to stay at the top you will have to constantly build quality links to your featured web page. Now, there are exceptions, if your domain contains exactly the keyword phrase then this ranking factor alone will probably keep you at the top of the pile.

However, in most cases, my own experiences have shown, if you don’t regularly add links pointing to your promoted web page it will fall off the first page in Google. For very lucrative keywords, this can prove very costly.

One of the easiest ways to build quality one-way links to your web pages is to write keyworded articles and submit them to the many free online article directories. This alone will usually keep your top rankings in Google – I have been doing this for over 7 or 8 years and have consistently kept my listings at the top of Google. If I don’t regularly write these articles, my rankings will fall off the first page in Google.

But article marketing has lost some of its muster in recent years, mainly because of the growng importance of social bookmarking sites in search engine rankings. Obviously, another marketing strategy is to constantly build links to your promoted pages/content through these social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Most times this is as simple as making it easy for your visitors to bookmark your content. Providing handy bookmark logos and icons will make it easier for your visitors to bookmark your content for you – in the process they’re building valuable one-way links to your web pages and boosting your rankings in the search engines.

Another avenue is YouTube videos… lately I have noticed just getting an active video which receives many comments and good ratings will raise your rankings in Google or rather Google will list your video at the top of their search results which means more targeted traffic to your site or page.
The viral nature of these videos will also help in your link building efforts, since webmasters will often feature the video and also mention/link to your site in the process.

Same goes for Twitter, constantly getting tweets will also keep your page or site in the limelight. Of course, some subtle bribery goes a long way, just offering a free ebook or course if someone tweets your content is a simple, yet very effective way of getting your content noticed more, especially with the search engines.

Another effective tactic is regularly adding keyword related content or pages to your sites and linking back to your promoted page. Don’t overdo this, just naturally add content to your sites as you would normally do and in the process you’re building links to your page, helping you stay at the top in Google.

Regardless of how you go about it, constantly adding links and maintaining your top rankings in Google is a major part of your online marketing. While all this may seem obvious to the professional online marketer, many beginning webmasters and marketers believe once they reach the top in Google, they can sit and relax. They can but after a little while if they don’t maintain and build further links, in most cases these top rankings will soon disappear.

By David Jackson in Featured

marketingIf you attempted to take a test without studying, chances are, you’d fail. Yet, every single day on the Internet, thousands of newbies are performing the equivalent of the aforementioned test analogy, by putting up a website without having the slightest idea how to promote it. And guess what happens – they fail. No, they don’t all fail, but most do.

The point is starting a business – any business without having even basic marketing skills is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. It’s a bad move. Competency in marketing is one of the most important business skills that you can acquire. If you become proficient in the art of marketing, there is no limit to what you can accomplish in the business world.

Take the Time to Educate Yourself First

Look, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and enthusiastic. Those attributes can take you a long way in business. But you also need to be smart about how you approach things as well. Why be in such a hurry? Take some time to educate yourself first. Does it really matter if you build that website now, or a few months from now when you’re more prepared? Of course it doesn’t.

Starting a business is like building a house. You start with a strong foundation, and then you build on it. Well,in business, being knowledgeable about basic marketing fundamentals is your strong foundation. You just have to build on it.

That means taking the time to learn how to do things the right way. Be patient, and prepare yourself for success. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Study and apply basic marketing fundamentals. Read a few marketing books. To get started, I highly recommend Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. It’s actually eight books in one, and is written by multiple authors. It’s perfect for newbies, and touches all the bases including,

* Establishing a Web Presence
* Search Engine Optimization
* Web Analytics
* E-Mail Marketing
* Blogging and Podcasting
* Social Media Marketing
* Online Advertising & Pay-Per-Click
* Mobile Web Marketing

Increase the Odds in Your Favor

To be clear, I’m not suggesting you have to become some sort of marketing expert, before you build your website. After all, even experts don’t know everything. And reading books certainly doesn’t guarantee you’ll be successful. But at least by educating yourself first, you give yourself a fighting chance – you increase the odds in your favor. And the Internet marketing process won’t seem like such a foreign language to you. In addition, your learning curve won’t be nearly as steep.

Conversely, when newbies rush into the process with their eyes wide shut, more often than not, they end up thoroughly defeated, disillusioned, and convinced that Internet marketing doesn’t work. Many give up on Internet marketing altogether, and never bother trying again. And that’s a shame. The sad part is many times those failures could have been avoided, if newbies had just taken the time to learn how to do the process the right way.

What’s Effective Frequency?

I’m a member of several small business forums. And one of the questions newbies ask most often is why isn’t anyone responding to their ads. Now if these newbies had taken the time to educate themselves about marketing beforehand, they would know about effective frequency.

What’s effective frequency? Effective frequency is the number of times a person must be exposed to an advertising message before they act on it. How many times that actually is debatable. However, some marketing experts believe in The Rule of 7…meaning on average, people have to see your ad a minimum of seven times, before they act on it. Does that mean people will automatically buy what you’re offering after they’ve seen your ad seven times?

No it doesn’t. Again, it’s just an average. It could be more than seven, but it could also be less. The fact of the matter is there are far too many variables involved to suggest that after people see your ad seven times they will automatically whip out their credit card, and purchase what you’re offering – not the least of which is traffic quality, competency of your sales copy, and the viability of the item being offered.

The point is by educating yourself on basic marketing fundamentals, you will learn about and understand marketing theories and concepts like effective frequency. By the way, the theory of effective frequency isn’t new. In fact, as far back as 1885, Thomas Smith, a successful London businessman wrote:

1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.

2. The second time, they don’t notice it.

3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.

4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.

5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.

6. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.

7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.

8. The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”

9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.

10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.

11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.

12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.

13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.

14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.

15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.

16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.

17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.

18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.

19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.

20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Thomas Smith’s words are every bit as salient today as they were back then.

In closing, Internet marketing is serious business – so be sure to treat it that way. Slow down, and take the time to educate yourself first. In the long run, it will be in your best interest. Because unlike the movie, Field of Dreams, where “if you build it, he will come.” In the real world, if you build a website without knowing how to promote it – nobody’s coming!

David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Free, common sense marketing tips to help grow your business. free-marketing-tips-blog.com

By Michael Zrinyi in Featured

windowslogoThis question is asked by many people from all over. The registry is a complex storage system in all versions of Windows. Its easy to understand why so many people ask this. Educating yourself on how the registry works and how to properly maintain it is important to keep your PC functioning correctly.

The purpose of the registry is to store configuration settings for Windows operating systems. The operating system uses the registry to access vital information for software and hardware settings.

If the registry gets damaged or corrupt in can cause many frustrating symptoms. Also if the registry gets filled with too much information it can also cause these symptoms. The symptoms of a corrupt registry can vary depending on what is damaged in the registry. Slow startups, sluggish performance, annoying error messages, lockups and crashes are the most common. These can all get worse over time if not taken care of.

Your Windows registry can be damaged from installing and uninstalling software and hardware. Viruses and other malware can also cause damage to your systems registry. Regular use of your PC will eventually lead to registry issues as well.

There are several way of repairing or maintaining the Windows registry. Using a registry editor to manually change the registry is one way. This method is only recommended to users with PC repair experience. You can create problems and make issues worse. Another method is to just reinstall Windows. This should be used as a last resort as it can be a tedious process especially for someone who has never done it. Or you can use a highly rated registry cleaner to repair and maintain the registry.

The use of a registry repair tool makes it easy enough for anyone to repair corrupt registry and to properly maintain it. Used in conjunction with virus/spyware protection and disk defrag it makes it simple to keep your PC’s performance and reliability at 100%

Think of your PC as your car or even your own body. All 3 are complex machines that from time to time require repairs. You can go to a specialist which usually requires more money then most are willing to pay. Learn how the registry works and try and repair it yourself or use programs made to safely repair and maintain it with little effort.

For more information on how to maintain your Windows PC and keep you windows registry clean visit our site www.highlyratedregistrycleaners.com

By Frank Breinling in Featured

webtrafficYou don’t want to continuously purchase traffic via StumbleUpon that should never be your ultimate goal.

Instead, you should utilize the advertising services there to jump-start your blog traffic with the goal being to encourage Stumblers to vote for you, which will in turn, push other visitors to your site, for free. Some bloggers fail to do this and end up paying for traffic longer than they would need to, if they just focused on creating a useful blog. Even though the advertising costs are lower than typical PPC campaigns, you can save a ton of cash if you make your blog worthy of a stumble. Set your blog in motion and watch the traffic continue to pour in, day after day!

Catch Them Before The Next Stumble

Since stumblers are similar to television channel surfers, you might not be able to hold their attention for long, no matter how compelling or interesting your content may be. To get the most out of their visit, offer a subscription form on your site where you offer a free report, eCourse, something – Anything – to encourage them to leave their information. That way, you can work on growing your list as well as growing your site. Your subscription box should be placed in a highly visible area of your blog. You should also utilize graphics, or compelling headlines to make sure it’s noticed.

Take Baby Steps

Don’t spend a ton of cash on your first StumbleUpon ad campaign, instead, test your ad copy with just a small spend. Once you see it working, you can increase your daily budget. Be sure to pay attention to the available stats to determine how many people voted for your site and continuously tweak it for the best performance you can get out of it. Testing isn’t fun but it’s important because you want to get the most votes you can. Once you are consistently receiving votes, you will start receiving a flood of organic traffic and when that happens, be prepared to pause your campaign before you purchase traffic for nothing.

Things To Avoid

Some bloggers believe that sending Stumblers to the very front page of their blog is the best choice, when advertising with StumbleUpon.

I would suggest that instead; create a landing page specifically for each campaign. If Stumblers have to seek out solid content, they’ll be gone before you know it, assuming it’s a paid advertisement or sales pitch.

Solution:
Choose a thread or page that carefully relates to your specific group of visitors (using categories and demographics), and choose a post that you feel is absolutely compelling. Make it spicy, entertaining, controversial, whatever you have to do to make that page stick and become ‘viral’. Also remember to add your sites to StumbleUpon by creating an ‘alias’ account and Stumbling onto your own pages, after first checking to see if they have already been Stumbled.

Frank Breinling is running an established webhosting business founded back in early 2004. Click following links for high quality webhosting – php-community.com or tldwebshop.com

By Chip Cooper in Featured

twitterHarvesting tweets is on the rise.

Researchers and marketers alike are now capturing and downloading Tweets from Twitter’s database. Privacy activists argue privacy concerns. Researchers, marketers, and Twitter users all want to know – is Twitter harvesting legal?

How and Why

Every day, users of the Twitter social media publishing platform send out millions of Tweets — short electronic messages of 140 characters or less — to their readers and followers.

Most Twitter users are not aware that it’s relatively easy for anyone with a skilled programmer to harvest and download their Tweets. All a programmer has to do is to gain access to Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API), and then to write code that requests data from Twitter’s servers through the API. The code contains search criteria, usually in the form of key words and phrases of interest.

One prime example of why Tweets are harvested is the harvesting of Tweets by news organizations Tweets during the riots that followed the Iranian presidential election of 2009. The results provided an excellent source of real time information from a closed society as events unfolded, and afterward, a fascinating historical record of how the protesters worked together under difficult conditions.

Advertisers have also joined the Tweet harvesting process.

For example, suppose you’re going to lunch in an urban office setting, and you tweet a collection of co-workers suggesting a specific restaurant. A savvy marketer harvests your Tweet, and then emails to your smart phone a coupon for a hefty discount at another restaurant nearby. Pretty nifty for the savvy marketer, and perhaps a welcome suggestion for a discounted lunch, but is it legal?

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act

In 1968, the Wiretap Act was passed to impose rules for obtaining wiretap orders. In 1986, the Wiretap Act was amended by The Electronic Communications Privacy Act to extend coverage of the Wiretap Act to electronic communications.

Generally, the Wiretap Act as amended prohibits the intentional interception, use, or disclosure of wire and electronic communications, unless a statutory exception applies. This means that all persons (including governments) are prohibited from wiretapping phones and intercepting electronic communications over the Web, unless a statutory exception (safe harbor) applies.

How does this apply to Tweets? A specific statutory exception applies to electronic communications that are publicly accessible. This is the exact language of the statutory exception: “It shall not be unlawful … for any person… to intercept or access an electronic communication made through an electronic communication system that is configured so that such electronic communication is readily accessible to the general public”.

Readily accessible to the general public is defined by the statute as follows: “… with respect to a radio communication, that such communication is not… scrambled or encrypted”.

It would appear that any Tweet that is not designated by the Twitter user as “private” would clearly fall within the statutory exception because the Tweet is not scrambled or encrypted. So, Tweet harvesters appear to have a strong argument that they’re protected by the publicly accessible safe harbor.

The Google Litigation

Google is now involved in litigation involving its collection of WiFi data. It seems that Google’s Street View cars have engaged in the now-ended practice of collecting bits of private wireless data while cruising neighborhoods for data used in its Google Maps online service.

Although Google ceased this type of electronic data collection and stated that it was not intentional, a class action suit has been filed against Google.

Conclusion

The harvesting of Tweets that are not designated as private would appear to be protected by the publicly accessible safe harbor. It’s interesting that Google’s collection of WiFi data is very similar to Tweet harvesting. It would seem that publicly accessible safe harbor would also protect Google in this litigation, but we’ll have to wait and see how this case is resolved.

Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated drafting your website legal forms with his Digicontracts.com Website Legal Forms Generator – www.digicontracts.com/websitelegalforms/. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which documents your website really needs. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at DigiContracts.com.

By David Lopez in Featured

SEO2Web directories have been around since the beginning of the World Wide Web in the early 1990′s and are still recognized as an important channel for advertising businesses online. People often get web directories and search engines mixed up. The difference between a search engine like Google and web directories is that Google uses a web crawler to automatically index websites to show up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), while a web directory organizes links under various categories and sub-categories.

How Can Submitting to Directories Help Your Website?

Here are some tips:

Get Indexed Quicker in the Search Engines

When search engines crawl directory websites any new entries within those directories also get crawled and indexed. Directories that are deemed authoritative by search engines like Google are crawled regularly, finding new website links to index which are then ranked to appear in the search results. If you are launching a new website, you should seriously consider submitting to website directories to speed up the process of getting indexed into Google.

Increase Your Positions in Google

As many website owners should know the more quality links to your website that you obtain, the more favorably Google will rank your website. Website Directories are a great source for one-way or reciprocal links. Well maintained directories will place your link in an appropriate category or sub-category, meaning that the directory’s human moderators agree that your website is about what your website claims to be about and is useful to human beings.

By J Pal in Featured

SearchEnginesThere are many pay per click advertising search engines to choose from online. The traffic quality varies across all of them. Some generate more sales than others and give you a better return on your ad spend.

3 of the best pay per click search engines for traffic quality are: Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and Microsoft’s adCenter.

According to ComScore.com these 3 have the following search market share in the United Sates (in March 2010):

Google Sites: 65.5%
Yahoo! Sites: 16.9%
Microsoft sites: 11.7%

Why is this important? Between just these 3 search engines they have an astonishing 94.1% of the search market share in the US. Ask have a 3.8% share and AOL have 2.5%.

This means the top 3 have the most traffic for you to tap into.

Which search engine should you use to run your Pay Per Click Advertising on and why? Here is a pro/con review of each…

GOOGLE ADWORDS

Pros:

Huge search volume. Because of this you can also dig deeper into your market and target niche markets.

Keyword research. They offer the best keyword research tool in my opinion and it is very simple and easy to work with. It gives you a ton of data on just about everything.

Excellent user interface. The AdWords interface has always been very clean and user friendly. They recently changed the interface and have improved it further to allow you to make multiple changes faster amongst other things.

Target different networks. You can target their content network (also known as Google AdSense) as well as different search networks.

Target different devices. You can target mobile phones as well as computers.

Ads go live fast. You don’t have to wait too long to get your ads approved.

Upload multiple campaigns easily. If you have big campaigns and many of them, you can upload them quite easily using the Google Adwords editor program.

Cons:

Very competitive. It is getting more and more competitive so you must get a good quality score with them. And this can also affect your sales.

Uncertainty for the future. If you base your business around this type of traffic you are vulnerable to the changes in Google that could happen overnight and stop your traffic dead.

Stricter guidelines. Guidelines are getting tougher as Google try to thin the herd and unlike the old days, it does take some work on your campaign to get a good quality score.

YAHOO SPONSORED SEARCH

Pros:

Good amount of search volume. So you can target different markets and niche markets.

Guidelines not as strict. Guidelines can be more relaxed than Googles’s but not by much.

Less competition. Less than Google that is but is still competitive.

Cons:

Keyword research. The keyword research tool is not as good as Google or Microsoft’s.

User interface. Not the cleanest and easiest use. Takes longer to put your campaigns together.

Less targeting options. Not as many as you would find at Google and Microsoft.

Uploading multiple campaigns. This is not as easy to do as it is in Google and Microsoft. You have to email your campaigns to Yahoo unless you have a gold account.

MICROSOFT ADCENTER

Pros:

Keyword research. Their keyword research tool has been improved lately and does include a demographic search option (something Google doesn’t offer). But Google’s keyword research tool is still more advanced.

Not as competitive. Not as competitive as Google and Yahoo.

Target by demographics. You can target by age and gender which can increase your sales.

Less strict on guidelines. A little less than Google but not by much.

Upload multiple campaigns. This requires the Microsft Silverlight application which is free. You can also import campaigns from Google and Yahoo.

Cons:

Not as much search volume. No where near as much search volume as Google and Yahoo which means less traffic.

User interface. This user interface is not as clean and as simple as Google’s but is better than Yahoo’s.

Less targeting options. You can’t target as many networks and devices as you can in Google.

Summing up The best pay per click search engine (in my opinion) is Google AdWords because the keyword research tool is the really good. The competition is high and guidelines are strict but they also have the most traffic which really helps.

They have a great user interface which makes setting up campaigns quick and easy.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft don’t have the search volume that Google does. This means it is harder to get traffic in niche markets where the competition is lower. But with the merger of Yahoo and Microsoft, there should be some great improvements ahead.

And now i would like to invite you to download your FREE eBook “Traffic Generation for Newbies” when you visit:
www.RealWaysToMakeMoneyOnline.org/freebook.html
Read this eBook and you will learn the real ways to make money online and avoid the mistakes that stop 95% of people from doing so.

By Darren Salkeld in Featured

facebook-iconTo be hyper effective at marketing in any business, you need to laser target your marketplace. It is very possible to get hyper amounts of targeted traffic to your business when you know where to look.

Traditional Means of Communication

Traditionally, marketing communications were conducted via print, broadcast and such traditional media through disruptive advertising, where advertisements appear in between the content of interest for the customer.

Traditional media does give a large reach to a marketer with its programming of mass appeal. However, the wastage is equally high, since a large portion of the audience would belong to a different segment than the one that is to be targeted by the marketer.

Enter Social Media and the Internet

The revolution stirred by the internet as a medium took place because of the fact that it is highly personalized and provides more content on-demand than any other available medium. Social sites proliferated far and wide in their usage for a few simple reasons:

The power of creating and distributing products and content is endless these days regardless if you are a newbie or not. In the earlier forms of media, that power rested with the editorial staff of the channel or the advertiser, but hardly ever with the user. The medium is completely personalized, and a user can create or join groups and further create content based on what he/she likes. Opinions are free and fair. This is one reason why social media is of utmost concern to marketers, since buying decisions are no more influenced as much by advertisements. The traditional word-of-mouth marketing approach is nearly a thing of the past as it has morphed into an automated marketing giant these days through social networks.

Facebook – At the Center of Social Media

With 500 million (and growing) unique users worldwide, Facebook is the number one social networking site in terms of activity and subscriptions. What started as a garage initiative by Mark Zuckerberg has now become the biggest phenomenon on the internet.

A user interface that allows for quick communication and the ability to create fan pages and groups at the click of a mouse button are what make Facebook extremely popular.

Another important reason for its immense popularity is the wide variety of social applications that have been developed and made available within the Facebook environment.

These applications provide endless possibilities for users, which is why they continue to be so popular. People can do joint activities like playing games that run endlessly, sharing photos, videos, and web links, and many more.

How does this help a marketer?

Traditionally, media plans were drawn to include television channels, publications, or any other media that can grab maximum eyeballs and effectively reach a selected target audience. The science of segmentation and targeting has become only more accurate in the case of social media.

Facebook provides a wide variety of avenues to communicate with your target audience, which opens up a completely new and exciting world of vast possibilities for you to have fruitful dialogue with customers. Some of these methods used popularly by marketers are:

Advertising: The first opportunity, which is the most obvious one, is advertising on Facebook. The difference, however, is the fact that you can create your own advertisement in a matter of minutes and also specify the details of your target group in terms of demographics and types of discussions where you want your advertisement to appear. Fan Pages: Facebook allows every brand, as well as individual users, to create fan pages for their favorite celebrities and their own homegrown businesses. Large brands have also created their official pages on Facebook that have a huge, immediate fan following around the world.
Don’t underestimate the power of a fan page. It has the power to immediately provide feedback and give first hand information about your brand and customer emotions.

Branded applications: One of the most effective ways to engage a user toward your brand is by creating an application; this could be a game or a contest, with your branding coming across subtly through it.

What makes Facebook even more exciting is the way it allows you to target your communication sharply just to the customer segment you want to attract. It also provides analytics and page insights that give good highly targeted feedback with an instant measurement on the activity done.

The options provided by Facebook can be creatively explored and used judiciously for bringing about maximum benefits to any brand.

However, you need to be aware that customers always have equal say and have the ability to respond immediately to any of your actions with a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Availing the service of a social media consultant to work out a social media strategy may be required so that your efforts will not be in vain.

The author has been marketing online since 2002. Over the course of his career online, he has successfully helped thousands of regular people make money from home. To learn more information, visit: www.hyperfbtrafficsystem.com

By Charlotte Mooney in Featured

We’re always being warned about the many perils and dangers lurking in the deep dark recesses of the Internet. Those of us with children are constantly being urged to protect them from ‘Stranger Danger’ and Cyber bullying on chat rooms, instant messaging and social networks. According to the media, dating websites are full of predatory strangers waiting to murder us or empty our bank accounts. Scams, Identity Theft, Spam, Spyware, Adware, Malware, and Computer Viruses: the list of hazards goes on and on. It’s not just a web, but a veritable labyrinth full of pitfalls and hidden traps for the unwary.

So it stands to reason that a web-based, or SaaS system, for applications such as Document Management and Project Planning and Time Reporting, must be inherently unreliable, and the Cloud must be a bad place to store your data, right? Wrong! Entrusting your personal or business data to an outside company is a risky undertaking, isn’t it? Not necessarily!

To entrust your irreplaceable, confidential data to an external agency is a leap of faith, no doubt, and obviously you must choose your SaaS system very carefully. Choose a well-established and reputable service provider, however, and your data will actually be more secure than it would be on your own company’s data server. It’s not the Internet that is dangerous: it’s the people who use it, and the way that they use it. You wouldn’t hire a nanny for your children without checking out her references. You wouldn’t go on holiday and leave your house with the doors and windows open and unlocked. You wouldn’t leave your wallet on the bar counter while you go to the washroom. You wouldn’t lend your Credit Card to a stranger. At least, I sincerely hope you wouldn’t do any of these stupid things…

The beauty of SaaS is that it frees you up to access all your projects, files and folders any time and anywhere in the world, and sorts out all your security issues at the same time. It’s much more secure to use a SaaS service, when traveling or working from home, than it is to rely on portable storage devices such as laptops, CDs and data sticks, which are easy to steal, easy to lose, and are regularly left on trains, buses and in taxi cabs.

Still worried that the Internet is a dangerous place for your company’s confidential data? It’s very prudent of you to be aware of Internet security issues; we all know about the risks of hackers, viruses and Internet fraud. In order to fully benefit from the advantages of having your projects and documents online, you need to ensure that they are fully protected from hardware failure, good old human error, and from cyber attack. Look out for SaaS systems which offer additional security features for controlling file access and permissions. These will allow you to decide who can access your data, and also to control the level of access they are granted.

Any reputable SaaS provider will be ISO20000-certified, and will regularly back up all your files and folders. All data transmitted via the internet should be fully secure and encrypted. Your data should be stored in a secure server environment equipped with fire protection, climate control and using multiple internet connections with a range of internet providers. Before you sign up for a new SaaS system, check out that these safeguards are all included. With a reliable SaaS system in place, and all your security controls set up, you can relax and let your service provider take care of day-to-day chores like file back-up and data encryption. That will leave you free to spend more time doing what you are good at – running your business!

Charlotte Mooney is an IT professional with many years experience, currently working for International IT Software Consultancy Proswift, specializing in the Webforum online Document Management and online Project Planning Service. If this story strikes a chord with you, click here and check out what Webforum could do for you and your business – www.proswift.com/webforum

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