A business person can often work more efficiently if they go online with their smartphones & other mobile devices once in a while. However, that does present a cybersecurity problem.
Links, files, photos, contacts and other company data are often stored in the mobile device. Using an Evil Twin phony hotspot or a Firefox Tamper Data plugin, it may just be too easy for hackers to download these data from the hotspots you are using.
Solution: PrivateVPN
Faithfully using PrivateVPN (virtual private network) can virtually eliminate this threat. PrivateVPN has servers in over 55 different countries. Before exposing any confidential information online, you open up PrivateVPN and select a country.
You are then given an IP address for that particular country. Then you go onto the Internet. PrivateVPN encrypts the data before it passes through the Internet. Then it decrypts it when it reaches your computer.
This GIF is an illustration of a user in North America getting an IP address from Finland. Even if a hacker was able to decrypt your data (extremely unlikely), he would not know from which country you came.
PrivateVPN
I used PrivateVPN to find an IP address in Finland. Then I used whatismyipaddress.com to find a map and other details that tell where my temporary IP address is located.
If their service is too slow, I simply choose another country
Unlike some other VPNs, they keep no records about where you surf on the web
You pay for ONE account and can use it on a total of 6 devices
With PrivateVPN, mobile employees can securely connect to company resources from virtually anywhere in the world. This applies even with insecure Wi-Fi hot spots.
Summary
Cybersecurity will be at a high level when you faithfully use PrivateVPN with your mobile devices. Your company financial, customer and other sensitive information will be kept secure. Your employees can increase their productivity and keep things private at the same time.
Advertisers and tracking companies don’t respect your privacy. They use various techniques to record your Internet browsing habits. They collect all kinds of information:
Websites you have visited
Kind of products you are interested in
Your political ideologies
Health conditions.
There are other reasons why you may not want people to be able to see your Internet use:
You are a celebrity
You are an employee doing market research of your competition
You are a reporter, law enforcement officer or writer covering sensitive topics. You want to make your computer untraceable to prevent reprisals.
Online search choices are then attached to your computer’s IP address
Subsequently used to customize the advertising and future searches for your machine
Zero respect for your privacy
Privacy solution: PrivateVPN
There is a technique to protect you from those prying eyes. It’s called using PrivateVPN (virtual private network). It makes you untraceable on the Internet.
When you start a web surf, you go straight to PrivateVPN and BYPASS YOUR ISP (Internet service provider). When you get to the website you want, you will be using the IP address of the particular PrivateVPN server. Whoever would like to track you does not know it is you.
Makes your online activity completely illegible to eavesdroppers
Manipulates your IP address
Makes you appear to come from a different machine/location/country.
You may be concerned about the wrong party:
Getting information about your browsing habits
Using your IP address to charge you more or
Using hackers for major cybersecurity breaches.
Wherever you lie in that spectrum, PrivateVPN will be a good step in the right direction.
In the case of PrivateVPN, the signal may even jump to a server in another country before you get to the website. The snooper won’t even know what country you’re from.
10 reasons why people may want PrivateVPN
Intranet outside the office
PrivateVPN will allow employees to access a corporate intranet in complete privacy while located outside the office.
Secure chat rooms
Your girlfriend, wife or business partner can enter the URL of a chat room to take part in a secret chat.
Con men
Every place you go to, your online activities can be monitored by Internet service providers, government organizations or criminals. Protect ourselves against malware or con tricks when web browsing.
Securely connect separated offices
Use PrivateVPN to securely connect geographically separated offices of an organization, creating one cohesive network.
Circumvent political censorship
Secure your transactions with PrivateVPN to circumvent geo-restrictions and censorship. Countries like Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria surveil and limit access to the Internet. Activists and journalists in one of these countries can connect to PrivateVPN server and tunnel out of the censorship restrictions. PrivateVPN conceals your page-by-page activity from any government eavesdropping.
YouTube users might have come across a message that says, “This video is not available in your country”. PrivateVPN’s free YouTube proxy allows you to watch any video with zero constraints.
Note that you must add Private VPN to your computer before you arrive in the geo-restricted country.
Online shopping
Do you get annoyed by the shopping sites keeping tabs on you? They start sending you ads related to where you shop. PrivateVPN makes that a thing of the past.
Test online strategies geographically
PrivateVPN’s services allow SEO and marketing professionals to connect to servers in different regions to test their strategies and processes.
Make public wifi private
Those Starbucks or McDonald’s hotspots are not safe for confidential email and browsing. Public wi-fi offers no encryption security to its users, and your signals are broadcast for anyone savvy enough to eavesdrop.
Accessing insecure websites makes it easy to steal your private information.
It’s very easy for even a beginner hacker to intercept your unencrypted wi-fi signal using an Evil Twin phony hotspot or a Firefox Tamper Data plugin. Mobile users should consider spending the 4 to 5 dollars per month for the safety of a PrivateVPN connection.
Secure Skype phoning
It’s relatively easy to eavesdrop on Voice-over-IP (Internet telephoning). Even intermediate-level hackers can listen in to your VOIP calls. Perhaps you regularly use VOIP services like Skype. If you log into a public wi-fi network and then connect to your PrivateVPN, all of your hotspot web use will then be encrypted and hidden from prying ears & eyes.
Make booking flights & accommodation cheaper
Flight and accommodation Booking websites:
Display different fees based on users location and currency.
Use tracking of your online activity
Allows them to increase the fee on your next visit
To ensure the cheapest rates, use PrivateVPN services whenever planning your next trip.
Free 7-day trial
If you wish to tryout a VPN at no cost for 7 days, go to free 7-day trial VPN. No credit card is required.
You will create a password that allows you to use PrivateVPN from anywhere in the world — on up to 6 devices at the same time.
It takes only a few minutes before your own PrivateVPN will be downloaded into your Downloads folder. Double click on it and then drag the PrivateVPN app into your applications folder icon.
In a few seconds you will actually see it within your actual applications folder.
Double click on PrivateVPN. Fill in the email address and password that you gave during registration.
Click on the country list link. Click on the country from which you want to appear to be browsing.
Suppose you tested your new PrivateVPN out by clicking on the Belgium country link. Then search for what is my IP address? IP Lookup will give your IP address. Click on Get IP Details.
You will see data telling that you are in Belgium.
During the next 7 days, test out everything you can think of.
Email problems?
After you have used your PrivateVPN, you may be unable to use your regular email. That’s because you are not using your regular IP address.
To enable your regular IP address, click on PrivateVPN in your applications folder. You will get a PrivateVPN panel. Click on the button in the centre of the panel & your home IP address will be set up again. Then you email will work the way it did before you got PrivateVPN.
Blogger’s notes
To buy PrivateVPN, please click on any PrivateVPN link on this blog post. I will get a commission & it will help defray the cost of creating and keeping up this website.
In a nutshell, this post will tell you how to make a brand new WordPress website. In this example it will have:
* A home page
* A contact us page with a Google Map
* Local optimization to put you on Google’s page 1
* Two business email addresses that link to your regular address. E.g., Sales@myamazingwebsite.com & Info@myamazingwebsite.com
* An About Us page.
What if you start reading this over and you don’t want to do it yourself? Well, go to Kelowna Virtual Assistant and find out how we can do it for you.
How to set up the entire WordPress website in 11 steps
1. Web host
Since I started creating websites in 1996, I’ve used many different web hosts. My very favourite one has been LiquidNet Ltd Hosting. They have amazing tech support and have been able to help me with practically any problem I’ve had. Besides that, they make it easy to set up a WordPress website.
You probably need no more than the starter package. It is only $35 (USD) per year.
2. Domain name
Choose domain name that helps brand your business. For instance, IBM has ibm.com, Kelowna Virtual Assistant has kelownavirtualassistant.com and CNN has cnn.com.
This post will help you decide upon the ideal domain name for your business.
3. Buy & register your domain
My very favourite place for buying & registering domain names is WhoIs.com. Go there as soon as you have decided upon your domain name. Click on Login to create an account.
You will have to change the DNS settings to supremedns1 & supermedns2. Go here now to find out how to do that.
4. Set up WordPress
Before setting up WordPress, go to My Domains > Hosted Domains. Click the white on black Host Domain button. Add your new domain name to the Domain box. Click Add a Host.
Go to this blog post to see how to add WordPress to a LiquidNet Ltd Hosting website.
5. Home Page
If you followed the instructions in the previous paragraph, you should have a home page. To edit it, click on edit from ANY page in your new website. On the left-hand side, you will see a black column called the Dashboard. Click on Pages > All Pages.
If you scan through the pages, you will see one called Home. Click the Edit link to make changes.
It is important that the Home page be attractive and informative. That is often where visitors go to find more information about your business.
6. WordPress plugins
WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to make WordPress more powerful. After you have finished your initial WordPress website, you really should click on that link and then learn about the most important plugins. Make sure you have them.
7. Contact Us form
Of all the WordPress Contact Us forms I’ve ever used, Caldera Forms is my favourite plugin. Using the instructions from the above paragraph, go to the Plugins link in your dashboard and install & activate Caldera Forms.
Then go to Pages > Add New and add a new page called Contact Us. Using these instructions, add a Contact Us form to that new page.
8. Google Map
Go to this Google Maps page and add a Google map to your Contact Us page. Make sure there is a pin at the address of your business.
9. Google p.1 with Local Listing
Local Listing means that you can often get on Google p.1 if you have a Google Map and set up Google My Business properly. Learn more on the Google My Business blog post.
10. Specialized email addresses
You may want to have specialized email address similar to info@myamazingbusiness.com. Say you want to have it forward to your personal email address. Your business card can have info@myamazingbusiness.com. You do not have to have your personal email address on your business card. This is how to do it:
Log into your LiquidNet Ltd Hosting account
Click on Email tab > Mailboxes
Over to the right click on Create a New Email Account
Use the dropdown box to scroll down to your domain name
Add info, sales, your name or anything you want
Fill in the forwarding information. Add your personal email address or whatever address you want the email forwarded to.
11. About Us page
To add your About Us page, click on New just to the left of View Page. For New you have 5 choices. Select Page.
The rest should be intuitive. Make sure you give a little bit about your history and what you might do to give a benefit to the visitor. Include pictures that promote your business.
Too time consuming?
After going through this blog post, you may decided that you are not prepared to spend the time learning all of this. That’s reasonable. Simply go to Kelowna Virtual Assistant and find out how we can create your WordPress website for you.
One of the best SEO tools around is Google Trends. It shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world. It is possible to refine the main graph by region and time period.
For instance, the chart here is comparing two search term uses over the past several years. The red line is SEO. The blue line is Search Engine Optimization. The highest point in the red line represents 100% of the searches for SEO throughout the world. Every other point on the two graphs represents the number of searches compared to that highest point for SEO.
I compared the two terms because I wanted to know which one I should use in the title of this post. SEO is way more popular than Search Engine Optimization. That’s why SEO is used in the title.
You can compare up to 5 different search terms at the same time.
Ubersuggest can help you find the different search terms.
Yesterday I created a post about animated GIFs. On this page, 7 different social media are used to promote the blog post about how to create this special GIF. This page show how those social media were used.
To find the Twitter post, go to the latest post that has the above picture of the yellow affiliate marketing button.
See the Google+ post. When you post a link to a web page on Google+, the picture at the top of the page automatically shows up. In this case the first picture was an automated GIF.
Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.
This animated GIF was used to promote an online course about email marketing. Click on it to see how this works.
More about social media marketing
2016: The Year Everything Changed In Social Media Marketing
The Inside Counsel website says
Three megatrends culminated in online business development in 2016, requiring attorneys to change their digital marketing tactics and to re-focus on what produces results.
Your next client will most likely visit you using a smartphone, not a desktop computer. New data from comScore shows that digital media time spent on mobile devices is now a whopping 68%. Desktop computers account for only one third of digital time spent. Ask yourself: What does your law firm website look like on a cell phone? Read more about these megatrends.
Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.
Passive income opportunity. There are lots of high quality products available that other people have created. The creators will pay affiliate marketers a healthy percentage of the selling price when they sell a product.
Some people are earning 6 or 7 figures every year without ever creating their own product. The get affiliate products from websites such as ClickBank.
2. Automated list-building system to find qualified buyers
Learn how to give some valuable information to people for free. In exchange for that, they give their email addresses. Learn about value-added email marketing.
3. Automated sales closing process
A good email marketing program does more than help you build your list. It shows you how to have a relationship with people on the list.
You build a trust. You send them valuable emails they WANT to receive. After about 7 emails they trust you so well that they pull out their credit cards and buy.
Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.
Notice the signup form. When people fill it out, they will automatically be send an email every day for 7 days. Each email will give them more information on how to create entertaining YouTube videos and animated GIFs.
The emails are sent out using the AWeber email services.
Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.
When copywriting, be careful that you do not use the wrong words. You do not want your visitors to leave sooner than is necessary.
A WordStream blog post says that they process information subconsciously at lightning speeds to determine if they’ll click or bounce within a few fractions of a second. The post goes on to distill huge amounts of data comparing the results of various words used in copy. It describes why the delinquent words are bad choices.
7 words to avoid when copywriting
1. Submit
These 2 landing pages are identical except for one thing. In one the bottom line says Submit. The one on the right says Click here to get my free PDF file.
There was a study using over 40,000 landing pages. One group said submit and the other said something different. The conversion rate for the one with Submit was a little over 14%. The other one had a conversion rate of 17%.
2. Business jargon like synergy
Simple easy-to-understand English gives a better conversion rate. Read the WordStream blog post for an explanation.
3 Hint of spam
Avoid any words that make people think about being spammed. Even Your information will not be shared gave a noticeably higher CTA (call to action) than We will never spam you.
4. We
People are reading your copy because they want a solution to their problem. They do not care about you as much as they care about their situation. So, use you or else no pronoun.
5. Your
When the message on a submit button was changed from Start your free 30 day trial to Start my free 30 day trial, there was a 90% increase in CTA.
6. Free (under certain circumstances)
The word Free can invite many people who just want a free sample. Read the WordStream blog post for a greater explanation.
7. Save Time & Money
Save Time & Money is a vague, meaningless, overly-used generic phrase.
Do this near the beginning of your online advertising campaign: Use a good website statistics program to figure out what is and what is not working. Then quickly adjust your advertising so that the stats will become more favourable.
Using Awstats for your website statistics
Awstats is a free program to help with your web analytics. I use LiquidNet hosting. They have Awstats, Webalizer, WordPress and many other programs available for your use at no extra cost.
The daily statistics chart showed that there were 559 visits to the website several hours after the advertising started. This was way higher than any of the previous 13 days. So, I knew that the advertising indeed did attract visitors to my website.
Top 10 pages
The Top 10 Pages chart tells you the top 10 pages that were visited during the month. As you can see here, the page in the Instagram ad was the third most popular page for the month. Considering the fact that the page was not promoted until November 14, it is obvious that the advertising is working to get people to the blog post.
Visit duration
The column in front of this chart displays the amount of time a visitor spends on the entire website during the month. The 87.6% stat shows that most of the visitors left the website in the first 30 seconds. That almost for certain meant that most of those visitors did not see any of my advertising.
However, the stats for August, Sept. & Oct. were also close to 87%. That suggests to me that most people spend less than half a minute on my entire website whether there is advertising or not. However, this could change if I could figure out how to have incredibly effective advertising at the top of the page. So far I have not figured that out.
Search keyphrases
These stats help you decide what pages people are really interested in. That will help you decide where to advertise.
Glossary
For more information about website statistics, go to the Awstats glossary.
Ebiz (electronic business) is the conduct of business processes on the Internet.
Perhaps you have a brick and mortar store and are upset with all of your potential shoppers who are shopping online. This blog post will help you set up your own online store. Promote online to people in your own city. You can have the best of both worlds — ebiz and physical store.
Perhaps you want to sell downloadable products throughout the English-speaking world. This blog post will help with that too.
Lay the foundation
As the cliche says, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” You will want to set up your store in neat columns & rows with buy now buttons that will add your sales tax and freight and then collect the money for you. Before you do that, lay your foundation.
Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.
The SFM system mentioned above will automate much of the online store creation for you. In the event that you want to make your own, go to the blog post telling how to make an HTML table.
Assuming you are using WordPress, you can use CSS to add border, align the data, etc.
Add PayPal buy now buttons
To add PayPal buy now buttons, go to paypal.com. Click the signup button. Login. From the horizontal menu click on More > Sitemap > Create PayPal Buttons (in the tools section) > Create New Button. Follow the instructions.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement by which the owner of a good or service pays a commission to a third party (the affiliate). The affiliate has an external website that promotes the good or service. The affiliate gets a commission for every sale generated from its referrals.
An example of this is ClickBank. Every product on that website is some sort of downloadable software. An affiliate creates a website that promotes the software. When someone downloads the software from a link on that website, an affiliate code will be included in the order. ClickBank will give the affiliate code owner a fixed percentage of the sale amount. (ClickBank will also get a percentage of the sale.)
Ebiz is here to stay
Ecommerce retail sales are increasing at a rate much faster than regular brick & mortar store sales. If you are interested in retail, ebiz is the way to go.
Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.
The Digital Trends website tells us that 5 million American jobs are expected to be replaced by robots by 2020. Technology replacing jobs is a huge problem. As a result, many people are looking elsewhere for employment.
Replacement jobs
If your job has been or may be phased out, your new career could very well revolve around email, the Internet and related IT jobs. So, why don’t you click on the image to learn about value-added email marketing.
Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.
With the changing job market, the scammers have entered the scene. You may get an email claiming to be a woman in Nigeria. Her husband died and she would like you to help her get his fortune out of Nigeria. In exchange you will get a big percentage of the inheritance. Press “delete” as soon as you see this one.
Another one tells you that you have won millions of dollars. In order to receive it, you have to pay a processing fee of several thousands of dollars. Delete.
Those scam warnings and many more were from the About Tech website. Read more.
Some are legitimate
Just because there are lots of scams out there, you should not reject them all. For instance, lots of people make very good affiliate income on ClickBank. (In this scenario, you promote a product online. When people buy because of a link from your website, you get a percentage of the sale.)
My favourite online business is an affiliate marketing opportunity with a twist. You earn money at home by helping people solve a problem they enquire about online.
Instead of simply promoting a product on your website, you offer to email them a free PDF file or video that would help them solve a problem. So, they fill in a form and you email them the free information. As the days pass, you will email them more related free information. It is genuinely useful information. After you develop a relationship with them, you will offer to sell them something.
If they buy the product, you will develop an online relationship with them even further. Hopefully you will eventually sell them related products.
I have been studying one company that uses this system. They are legitimate and I would not hesitate dealing with them.
Using this system, some people made good money even during the recession of 2008 – 2009.
Earn money online with fewer working hours
Once you learn the system, you can earn money online. You can make a good living and most likely have fewer working hours than you had at your previous job.
Watch the video below to see how robots are removing more jobs that they are creating. The “earn money online” system is one system that will work even if technology is replacing your job.
More than half of U.S. online consumers begin their product searches on Amazon.com Inc.’s website or mobile app, a survey found. . . . Fifty-five percent of those surveyed go to Amazon first when searching for products, an increase from 44 percent a year earlier, according to a Labor Day weekend poll of 2,000 people released by the Internet marketing firm BloomReach Inc. Read more.
One side effect of this: If you are working in retail, your job may be threatened. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get skills in a future-oriented career that will not become obsolete for a long time. You can keep working in retail full time while earning money online part time. You will be prepared for the time when technology replaces your job.
Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.