Category: Tuesday Tech Bytes

Your Devices Are A Target For Online Prowlers. At Your Peril Do Not Ignore!

Be Aware of Your Surroundings – Takes On a Whole New Meaning

When you were a child, your mom or dad reminded you, be aware of your surroundings. They wanted you to avoid getting hurt by a stranger. This sound advice also rings true when using your company’s computer, tablet or cell phone devices at any public Wi-Fi hotspot. Anytime you log onto a non-encrypted hotspot, you increase your device’s vulnerability to data hacking. Also, if you chose not to log on through a work-based VPN connection, you invite easy access to your company’s device. If you travel for business, you practice keeping your devices safe, especially in airports and train stations. But if you can avoid doing sensitive work at public hotspots, you’ve reduced your vulnerability and increased your awareness of your online surroundings.

 Company Security Policies Are For Your Protection

Let’s say you work from home. Or maybe you travel and work remotely. Once you leave the company’s secure environment, your vulnerability increases. The organization is entrusting; you won’t expose them to unwanted malware and a hostile environment they have no control over. It’s for this reason; your company institutes a mandatory security policy. The terms of the policy state when any staff member, works away from the office, they must use the company’s devices. Should your device be compromised, your IT Security department can contain the risk immediately. But using a non-issued device, a friend or spouse has, you’ve exposed your company to a possible cyber-attack. You’ve also left the IT Security team to pick up the pieces which could have prevented. No need to stick your neck out. Follow your company’s security policies and reduce your risk and exposure.

Not Some, But All Systems and Applications Must Stay Up To Date

We know. You hate being reminded. Security managers are updated zealots. But their sage advice is the simplest and easiest step a home office user has at their disposal. When running your updates, remember you are updating your operating system, all applications, and Microsoft Office. The updates are not just for the latest versions. Updates are for your stronger security-related measures. When your computer reminds you to update your system, take those extra minutes and update. Finally, don’t forget your once a week security scans and your once-a-month full system scan. You might be surprised what your system digs up.

You Can Trust Me – I Am Your Network, or Are You?

Let’s say a security application, you’ve never seen, pops-up and prompts you to do a security scan, would you click it on? We hope you’d say no and here’s why. Some applications appear harmless and legitimate, almost friendly and helpful. But underneath they are programmed for sinister activity and why you must stay vigilant and know in advance if an unfamiliar network should be trusted. Granted you will be suspicious of public Wi-Fi hotspots, but at home, that same caution must continue. Downloading an app, your IT Support hasn’t cleared, puts you at great risk. If you’re not sure you logged into the correct network, stop and contact your IT Security Support department right away.

Remove The Cache Sludge From Your Computer

Have you noticed lately, your computer or browser are taking just a little longer to boot-up or respond these days? With virus updates, software patches, surfing the web, emailing, and working from your home computer, you will build up digital muck. For starters, your cache is your catch-all. It doesn’t matter what it is; something is going to drain down into your cache. And it keeps a record of it. So, if you want smooth sailing internet browsing and peak performance, clean out your cache. Why horde piles of digital yuck, for months, in your cache, where malware has been known to hide out? Once you clean out your cache and reload your browser, it rewards you with the updated version of the website you’re visiting. Also, if the site owners keep their security up-to-date, your visit is secure.

These Cookies Are Not Your Friends Nor Are They Tasty

According to Webopedia, “a cookie will contain a string of text that contains information about your browser. To work a cookie does not need to know where you are from; it only needs to remember your browser.” Some Websites use cookies to store more personal information, about you, and you may not know it. You must find out who has data about you. With bad press surrounding social media sites, it’s becoming more important to check your browser for cookies and delete them selectively or delete them entirely.

Still Using Passwords – Multi-Factor Authentication Gives You New Security Powers

In the early years, you were trained how to use passwords to protect your sensitive material. Something easy to remember. But with progress came security breaches. Easy passwords were out. Next password level was using numbers and symbols in the place of vowels in your password. Now passwords are out, and passphrases are in. Here’s how it works. No confusing password with symbols or numbers to remember. What you create is a phrase you will easily picture in your mind, like the address at your best friend’s house. Instead of a password like this: #152@Bobs, you create a passphrase like this: AddressAtBobsPlace. Now you have an easier way to remember and beefed-up security powers to protect your sensitive information.

Will Your Router Pass A Security Examination?

Finally, are you still using the original router password that came in the box? Does anyone else have access to that password? In some home offices, passwords get shared with family and close friends. If you do not remember the last time you changed the router’s password, or who has access to it, the time to replace the password is now. But if that same router has reached 24 months, ask your provider to swap it out and get a new dual-band router. With newer routers come five enhancements. They are faster to respond, data transmission is reliable, the latest security firmware is updated, comes with a warranty, and you receive a new password.

For more Intruder Hating Home Office Security Tips gives Network Essentials a call at {phone} or email us {email} to speak to one of our Home Office Security Specialists

Is “Yoast” a typo? Are we raising a “toast” and just missed the “t” and hit the “y” key? Or is there a deeper meaning behind the name of the SEO superstar?

WordPress users love WordPress. It’s an incredibly straightforward platform with a simple user interface, which makes sense given its humble beginnings as a blogging application. Bloggers have used the free solution since 2003, enjoying the flexible and friendly features. Though it did begin as a blogging platform, its evolution into a content management system (CMS) was a natural progression. It’s estimated that as much as half of major global brands have websites run on WordPress. If you’re keeping count, that’s a staggering number of websites.

WordPress offers a plugin architecture for users that encourage plugins to extend features and functionalities of WordPress, catering to the needs of the user. At last estimate – though still in 2018 – there are over 50,000 plugins available for WordPress users, each offering customized functions and features to enable tailored experiences for specific needs. In fact, WordPress highlights available plugins for users, complete with a rating system and biographical details – similar to a product offering on Amazon!

Available plugins range from contact forms to an importer that allows users to bring in blog content from other blogs. Others include a WooCommerce plugin for e-commerce sites, and an on-page Google Analytics plugin for users to track site metrics. The second most popular plugin on the WordPress plugin dashboard is Yoast SEO, with more than 5 million active installations and a 5-star user rating by nearly 20,000 users. We were curious about the most popular plugin and had to know. Yoast SEO falls just behind a plugin called Contact Form 7, with the same number of active installations (but a lower rating by only 1,500 users in comparison).

What is Yoast SEO? Was someone thinking of toast and made a typographical error? The keys are right next to each other on the keyboard – is that what happened? Nope! The founder of Yoast SEO, Joost de Valk, pronounces his first name “Yoast” – it’s as simple as that! The firm that developed Yoast SEO is based in the Netherlands, by a team that is dedicated to its users and the community at large. Yoast SEO creators believe in open source software, where the code is readily available to anyone that wants to modify the code for customization.

Yoast SEO is an amazing tool that WordPress users add as a plugin to optimize their content for better search engine rankings. The Yoast SEO plugin helps users by making sure the right keywords are included in their content if they want to tag that content with those keywords, as well as reviewing word count and other elements that are important to better search ranking. The results of a search are based on Google’s infamous algorithm that determines the position a page ranks in search results returned in Google. The Googlebot crawls billions (and billions!) of pages across the Internet to index and adds to its search results. What are some of the factors that Google takes into account for ranking web content in search results?

Word Count

Word count is one of the most important content factors since Google – the king of search engines – takes length into consideration when the Googlebot crawls pages to index. The number of words in a page is a good indicator of the quality of content – sometimes. A thousand words of gibberish or just words strung together with zero relativity are always possible, which is why this isn’t the only factor Google relies on for a page’s search position.

Keywords

Keywords are equally important for more reasons than just Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. When the Googlebot is crawling through those billions of web pages, the byproduct is the indexing of the words it finds and their locations on a web page. This process also reviews all the “hidden” words in content, like the tags used and various content attributes within the code, like alt text and title tags, and all of these are used to relate the keywords to the content, a stronger indication of content quality than word count, but together with word count keywords boost a search engine result position.

Title and URL

A web page’s title is the first thing a user sees when looking at search results in a browser. This is not necessarily the title that is shown on a web page as the headline announcing the page content. This title is what is in the code of the page and shows on the browser tab. This title should relate to page keywords and content to help boost a search position. If your primary keyword is in your title, it adds credibility to – or, optimizes – your content and boosts your search position and ranking. The title is sometimes also in the URL of a web page, but it can be slightly different. So long as the primary keyword is still present, any slight alteration won’t negatively impact your position.

Description Snippets

Why do snippets matter? Snippets show the description of your page content in search results, which Google shortens as it needs to based on screen space or other factors. The bottom line with descriptions and snippets is to include critical keywords, place them early in the descriptions.

Traffic volume

Google works very hard to ensure the user’s search experience and maintain impeccable quality standards. This much is clear given Google’s position as King of Search. When Google serves search results, all of the above factors work to improve the overall search experience. The cogs in the machine are always turning and working to make sure that not only the user gets the best search results based on its determination that the content is relevant to the user’s search query, but also that when users click links to pages, Google is driving quality traffic to sites.

Now you’re thinking, how does Yoast SEO use all of this information and help me with my content? Yoast SEO has a plethora of built-in features that optimize your content:

• Snippet Preview
  • This handy little feature shows users how their snippet will look in search results in desktop, mobile, and even social media.
• Integration with Google Search Console
  • Users can see exactly how to expect site and pages to perform in search engines, presenting the opportunity to fix errors before they affect search traffic
• Readability
  • This is a great feature that scores your content based on readability factors. Users create the content and tend to have difficulty seeing an outsider’s perspective. This score helps users better understand if sentences are too long, or if too many sentences start with the same word or phrases.
• Frequent Updates
  • The Yoast SEO plugin is often updated to keep up with Google’s algorithmic updates, to help users keep content optimized using current requirements and best practices.

Do you have the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress? There are paid and free versions, and it’s absolutely worth it to get the free version! Instructions are simple:

• Within WordPress, visit “Plugins” and “Add New”
• Search for “Yoast SEO”
• Activate Yoast from your Plugins page
• A prompt will ask you to start the configuration wizard
• Follow the wizard, and you’re done!

Familiarizing yourself with the Yoast SEO plugin will be even more simple after reading this, and you’ll start to notice your search rankings improve quickly, within 30 days of starting this process. Maintaining quality content will automatically help boost ranking, but Yoast SEO is the go-to tool for further optimizing and reviewing the factors that will impact search results most.

Microsoft is your ultimate cheerleader – which might be a pun on their product, Microsoft Teams! But really, the app is named for the collaborative environment that caters to teamwork.

Microsoft Teams is a collaborative workspace included in subscription-based Office 365 and a hub for workgroups with teams of staff. Microsoft Teams offers a secure environment and guarantees Team members access to the information a Team needs to work together. Connectivity and communication are clean and organized and offer Teams the chance to chat, call, meet, and store shared files within channels.

Why We Know You’ll Love Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is customizable for each Team and integrates with other productivity apps, including the full Office suite. Switching between Teams is easy, allowing for multiple accounts under one user should there be a need. Teams can be seen as Microsoft’s new iteration of Skype for Business – but with improvements!

Mobile calling and video conferencing are built-in offerings for Microsoft Teams, as are private and group chat capabilities. Chat messages are threaded, a popular option among collaborative platform users. Microsoft Teams also supports integration with email, and apps like SharePoint, Power BI, OneNote, and more. Users can schedule meetings and initiate notifications from within Teams. Users can search Microsoft Teams for people, files, and chat messages, and opt-in to notifications using connectors.

Cloud service connectivity is supported for a highly-customizable user experience, and users can increase productivity even further by automating tasks by adding bots to your Team. Tailor channels to your Team’s specific needs no matter what the nature of the Team is.

How different divisions use Microsoft Teams:

• Sales: Customize pitches, celebrate wins, tailor leads and messaging, and share product or service updates
• Marketing: Coordinate campaigns, plan events, share feedback, brainstorm tactics, and generate reports
• Project Management: Project planning and communication tools, share status updates and coordinate tasks, schedule and share deliverables, and organize project details
• Technical: Discuss requirements, and with the ability to integrate with tools like Jira, seamless and transparent communication is simple

Where You’ll Use Microsoft Teams

The development team at Microsoft knows that connectivity doesn’t rely on geographical location, and that modern teams can be distributed or global. Connecting via desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet, smartphone, or mobile device is easy as Microsoft Teams was designed with an interface for all options.

Who Will Use Microsoft Teams

Depending on if you choose private or public is what will decide if your Team is open to new members by invitation only, or anyone can join. Anyone can join Teams that are available to be discovered in the Suggested Teams.

Things to remember:

About Teams:

If you already have a Group in Office 365, activate Microsoft Teams on your existing Group rather than creating a new Group, to avoid duplicates. The Group will have a shared Outlook inbox and calendar, SharePoint site and document library. Redundant Groups lend to confusion over which is the official or “right” Group, and this goes against the purpose of Microsoft Teams.

• Teams can have up to 2,500 members, and each Team can be led by as many as 100 owners.
• Team owners can add new members to the Team, make other members Owners, and edit, rename, or delete the Team settings.

About Channels:

Channels organize Team conversations by topic. All Teams have a “General” Channel by default, to help a Team initiate communication within the Channel.

• Following a Channel will give users an alert for all activity within a Channel.
• Selecting the star to the right of the Channel name marks the Channel as a Favorite, and this Channel stays visible.
• When a Channel needs to be removed, it’s wise to archive rather than to delete, because the content in a deleted Channel is lost.

A neat trick allows users to send an email from Outlook or Gmail or another integrated email service into the Channel, and the email will be forwarded in for all members of the Team to see within the Channel. This feature is particularly helpful with Teams that generate long email chains involving many recipients. Emailing communications like these into a Channel also helps centralize the communication and maintain continuity of the conversation, supporting the purpose of Microsoft Teams.

Team members can schedule meetings within a Channel, or members can opt to “Meet Now” in a cool feature that allows any Team members available to hold an impromptu meeting over the phone or via video.

About Tabs:

Tabs are helpful in that tabs support a multi-faceted approach to sharing and communicating. The nature of Microsoft Teams is a collaborative environment and allowing Team members to utilize Channels to share more than just basic messages facilitates open dialogue.

• Conversations: conversations with members of your Team
• Files: Upload, share, and view files with other members of your Team. Documents seen here are placed in your Team’s SharePoint document library.
  • Files can be edited right in the user interface.
  • Users have access to their OneDrive folders, as well, thanks to Microsoft’s fully-integrated environment.
• Wiki: An interactive notes experience for Team members to take notes, tag Team members to notify them in real time, and draft or edit content in real time
• Custom: Add a tab from the available integrated app gallery into a Channel
  • Everything in Office, like Excel, Word, OneNote, and more, as well non-Office apps like Adobe and SurveyMonkey

About Connectors and Bots:

Connectors are how Microsoft Teams pushes content into the Channel from connected applications and feeds, upon initiation by the user.

• Connectors add a service for users directly into Teams, like for a Twitter feed, an RSS feed, GitHub or Trello, and many others.
• Content delivered via Connector can be customized, as well.
• Intelligent automation Bots are built into Microsoft Teams and are designed to be interactive with Team members. Tag the bot for activation and offer simple commands for responsiveness.

Microsoft Teams offers tremendous flexibility and an amazingly intuitive interface for users. Teams is a wonderful collaborative workspace and communication hub. Like with any new technology or platform, adoption is dependent entirely on the collective using the application or service for widespread and continued use. It’s also compliant with regulations from HIPAA to ISO standards.

The magic of Microsoft Teams is in its flexibility, its transparency, and its simplicity. Try it today using these tips, and enjoy a successful Teams launch!

With a great looking, professional website, your business can compete in today’s complex marketplace. Since your website is the first thing consumers see, it has to make a great first impression. Otherwise, you may find your traffic declining and conversions down. A company website should also reflect your values, experience and industry knowledge.

Often times, business owners try to cut corners and design their own website. While this can be a good solution if you’re low on cash, it can also result in a poorly built site. Some business owners have good, keen insights on how their website should be laid out, the right colors to use and other design elements. But often, this is not true. You may be a pro at what you do, but designing a website requires specific skills you may not have. Before you let your cousin’s roommate design your website, or tackle it yourself, check out these 9 web design mistakes that business owners consistently make.

Number One: User-Friendly Design

A great deal of research has gone into the topic of how to create a user-friendly website. User experience (UX) is one of the key elements of a great website. UX focuses on making sure each visitor has the best possible experience on your site. Was the site easy to navigate? Was the information there credible? Did visitors find the content valuable? It’s a complicated process to get each one of these exactly right.

Number Two: Is It Mobile Friendly?

Most web designers will claim to give you a website that is mobile friendly but don’t take their word for it. This is something that every web designer says to potential customers. Instead, check out a few of their past designs and make sure. Each year, the number of people shopping on their smartphone grows and that is slated to continue on into the near future. A poorly executed mobile site could cost you in the end.

Number Three: Professionally Written Content

This is another area where business owners often try to cut corners. Why not let your spouse, brother or one of the kids write your content? Because poorly written content shouts out to the public that you aren’t taking your business seriously. An experienced copywriter knows how to word your content so that it’s easy and fun to read and contains your important keywords.

Number Four: Web Design Layout

There are so many choices when it comes to how your site should be designed. You have unlimited choices about where to place images, content, taglines and other elements. Some people have great instincts about this stuff, while others struggle. A professional web designer should have enough experience to research your business, industry, and competition and give you exactly what will work best for your specific business. Even small changes can make a big difference.

Number Five: Optimized Content

Optimizing your content so that your site comes up on the first page of search engines is every business owner’s dream. But this dream is a process that takes place every day. When you initially place content on the site, it should be professionally written and contain your keywords. Any future content you add should also be optimized. It’s important to review your content every two years to ensure that it’s still relevant and still contains the right keywords.

Number Six: Use of Colors

This is where many individuals fall short. It may seem like a great idea to do the whole site in black and orange but do a bit of research first. The colors you use should be easy on the eyes, they should be enticing, they should not provoke any negative moods. Experiment by checking out a dozen websites in your industry. As you visit the sites, write down one word that you thought of when you first viewed the site.

For instance, one dating site uses pink and blue. While these colors are associated with boys and girls, your target audience is NOT boys and girls; it’s men and women. Adults might find the use of a girly pink color offensive. There are certain shades of pink and blue that might work, but always bear in mind the impact that colors have on shoppers. There’s an entire industry built around what colors to use, whether you have a brick and mortar store or a website. It’s worth your time to learn about this topic.

Number Seven: Too Much Clutter

Some people just don’t get the concept of “too much information.” A messy website with boxes here and there, multiple images and content that rattles on can be a big turnoff for consumers. It’s like an information overload occurs when viewing some websites. You get that feeling of being overwhelmed, so you click away as soon as possible. Once this happens to a visitor, there’s very little likelihood that they’ll ever visit your site again. We often only get one chance to impress.

Number Eight: No Clear Direction

Too often, website visitors land on a page, look around for a few moments and still have no idea what the business is all about. Your value proposition, your mission statement … these things should all be upfront and easy to understand. There’s no excuse for even one person visiting your site, then leaving without knowing who you are and what you do. Sometimes we all enjoy working on riddles and puzzles, but don’t make your potential customers do that or they’ll go someplace else to shop.

Number Nine: Pages Load Too Slowly

Usually, with today’s technology, this is not as much of a problem as it was a few years ago. Typically, if a page loads too slowly, you have too many images, charts, diagrams and other elements that slow down page-loading times. One site that features emeralds from all over the world suffers from slow page-loading. Why? Each page of the site has a dozen photos, uses formatting like bolding and colored text and includes internal and external hyperlinks. While you can do this occasionally on a page, you cannot get away with doing it on every page of your site.

Tips for Success

Look around before you buy. Check out several web designers before a signing a contract. Make sure that some revisions are included in the price. Though you won’t find anyone who will do unlimited revisions, you might be able to negotiate this. Ask for references and check those out. A site should be visually appealing but it should also offer an incredible user experience.

It’s important to find a good web designer that you trust and then allow them to do their job. If you second-guess all their design choices, you may not get the best end result. Be cautious about working with companies in places like Lithuania, Poland and India. Some of these business owners are hard-working individuals who will do a great job. But there’s often a cultural and language barrier that can cripple your efforts to get exactly the website you want.