Design Archives - CyberGuru

Are you ready for the upcoming SSL/HTTPS changes?

cyberguru Design June 12, 2018July 24, 2018Google, HTTPS, security, SSL, SSL Certificate, website, website security

Are you ready for the upcoming SSL/HTTPS changes?

It’s been confirmed, Google has announced that in July 2018 they will begin to identify all websites that do not have SSL certificates as “not secure”. Have you checked whether your website is displaying as secure?

You can check whether your website by seeing if your website if your website address bar contains HTTPS. As per Google’s Blog posts, “A secure web is here to stay” and “Evolving Chrome’s security indicators”, Google Chrome will be identifying websites without HTTPS in their website address as “not secure” in version 68 due out in the next month. It is expected that the other browsers, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge, will also follow suit in due course.

With only a few weeks until these changes occur, we strongly suggest you ensure that your website has an SSL certificate so it will continue to be displayed as secure. If your website address doesn’t contain HTTPS then your website server will require the installation of an SSL certificate and changes will need to be made to the website itself.

CyberGuru’s newer website hosting plans can take advantage of an AutoSSL certificate at no cost, however we will need to make some changes to the internal workings of your website for it be compliant. This includes enabling the SSL certificate, updating your website’s internal links to ensure they go to the HTTPS version of the website and testing to making sure your website works as it is intended to.

We are providing a service for both CyberGuru clients and non-CyberGuru clients to perform the required changes on your behalf. In order to do this, we will require access to your website’s cPanel account as well as WordPress account. We will be aiming to complete all SSL/HTTPS website changes before July, however we will be working on a “first come, first served” basis depending on popularity of this service.

Please contact us for a quote on how we can make your website SSL/HTTPS compliant.

How can I protect my website from being hacked?

cyberguru Design May 29, 2018July 24, 2018maintenance, security, updates, updating, website, website maintenance service

Having a website is like having a virtual shop front to your business and provides the ability for your visitors to come and browse you and identify possible products and services they may like to buy. However, like a physical shop front, you should ensure you have security measures in place to protect the information that is stored on your website.

1. Perform regular backups of your website.

Having a regular backup of your website providing you with the ability to have a copy of your website to restore if required. Whilst website hosting providers will often perform nightly backups, there is often a cost to restore these. We suggest at least taking a backup once a month to ensure you have a copy of it at a point in time to restore to if required.

2. Remove any users no longer required and change passwords.

Depending on how your website was designed, you may have had a previous designer or developer or staff who have had access to your website to maintain it on your behalf. If these users no longer require access to do this, we suggest you remove or change the level of access to not allow them to make changes. Similarly, change your passwords on a regular basis. Passwords that have not been changed for some time may be likely to be compromised especially if they are simple.

3. Install updates on a regular basis.

Most of the common website content management systems, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, all require regular updates, along with any associated third-party plugins, themes and translations. These improve the features, performance and security of the website.

4. Disable or remove unnecessary plugins.

You may have plugins for your website that you are not using. If you have upgraded your website in the past, you may have plugins installed that were from your older website, or are no longer in use. If you are not sure if you are using them, you may decide to disable these until you determine that they are not needed. However, if you are certain you are not using them, then you could remove these.

5. Install a security plugin to report security issues.

There are various security plugins available that can notify you when an administrator logs on to your website, users have been blocked (through incorrect passwords when attempting to login or malicious attacks), when files are modified, and when updates are needed.

6. Consider a website maintenance service.

You may wish to consider a website maintenance service, such as CyberGuru’s to perform the review and maintenance for you, including backups, updates and test your website on a monthly basis. For further details, please see the Website Mainternance Service page on the CyberGuru website.

If you would like to know more how you can protect your website from being hacked, please contact us today.

Getting visitors to your new website

cyberguru Design April 17, 2018April 17, 2018Bing Places for Business, Google My Business, Website Advertising, website design, website design tips, Website Marketing, Website Promotion

So you have a website, but how can you get it seen by your visitors? Following developing a new website, you may think it is “build it and they will come” but once the website has been launched, it doesn’t stop there!

Here’s five tips on how you can attract more visitors to your website:

Add your business to local search providers. Providers such as Google My Business and Bing Places for Business allow local business owners to add a listing for their website on their respective search engines. Similar to Yellow Pages, these local searches allow anyone to search for a desired organisation near them (such as a plumber in Chermside). There also many other local search providers, such as True Local and Yelp. Should someone search for a business or one similar to yours on search or Maps, you can have a listing appear that outlines your business (including a brief description and photo) including phone number, address, as well as opening hours, website and address (if chosen).
Add your business onto search engines (Google and Bing). In addition to using the websites above, you may also wish to manually add your website to search engines. For Google, you can submit this through the Google Search Console (a Google account is required) and for Bing, through the Bing Toolbox. You can also consider paid search engine optimisation but at this stage.
Include your website address on your promotional material. We strongly suggest when launching a new website to promote it anywhere you can, such as newsletters, email broadcast and social media. However, you should also think about ensuring your business cards, fliers, email signature and signage also all contain your website address.
Start blogging and updating your website on a regular basis. Having a new website doesn’t stop at launch, you need to continue to maintain your website by adding new blog articles, updating your content and reviewing existing content on a regular basis. Similar to retail stores, by regularly changing your website, visitors are likely to come back more often to see what is new.
Link your blogs on social media. Depending on your chosen platforms, you may wish to provide a link to your blog articles on your social media channels. LinkedIn allows you to include your blog articles on their publishing platform. Other social media channels, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms generally include an image as well as excerpt from your article and a link. We suggest also including tagging where possible!

If you are starting out or already established your website, CyberGuru can help you with your website requirements. Please feel free to contact us if we can be of any assistance.

Secure your website with an SSL certificate

cyberguru Design February 27, 2018February 26, 2018HTTPS, Secure Sockets Layer, SSL, SSL certificates, website certificates, website security

Website security is becoming an increasingly important topic for both organisations and its clients. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates are now recommended for all websites, whether they are used for purchasing products or services online, or simply for contacting the organisation.

An SSL certificate ensures the secure transfer of sensitive data, such as your clients’ details (including their name, email address and other personal information). These certificates enable your data to be encrypted, allowing only the authorised server to be able to access it.

Web browsers, particularly Firefox and Chrome, are also now warning users when they attempt to visit an unsecure website advising of its risks. Later this year, this will increase to identifying fields on forms (eg. contact and order forms) that are not secure.

There are some further changes afoot regarding website security and search engine rankings. Google is looking to penalise websites that are not secure by displaying them lower in the search results.

CyberGuru are offering a service to bring websites compliant with SSL whereby we will perform the required changes for you.

If you are interested in this service, please contact us for more information.

What is the difference between an email address and email alias?

cyberguru Design April 8, 2016April 8, 2016configuration, domain name, domain names, email, email account, email address, email addresses, email alias, email aliases, email hosting, email set up, Microsoft Office 365;, Office 365, set up, website hosting

There are many tasks to do when starting a new organisation, and one of the more important aspects is set up email accounts for your staff. One consideration is whether to how best to set up email addresses and aliases. This is also important when setting up new domain names, website or email hosting packages or a Microsoft Office 365 environment.

Generally, email addresses are the name of the person using the email account. In the case of Mary Jones, her email address could be first name (mary@domainname.org.au), her full name (maryjones@domainname.org.au) or abbreviated somehow (for example, mjones@domainname.org.au or maryj@domainname.org.au). Organisations keen on individual staff may choose to do this, but as staff leave the organisation, their email accounts are then deactivated or removed which has the potential to lose mail.

A growing number of organisations are now using email aliases to represent the positions of their staff (for instance, ceo@domainname.org.au or director@domainname.org.au). These often forward to the email address, so that if Mary Jones’ email address is ceo@domainname.org.au, any emails sent to this address can be forwarded to her named email address (mary@domainname.org.au). In some organisations, generic aliases are set up for departments, such as Administration, Sales and Marketing. These can be sent to go to groups of people.

Depending on your needs, your organisation may have both email addresses and aliases. Organisations may also wish to consider using some aliases or generic accounts to separate some of their emails should they seek the assistance of someone in the future. CyberGuru also encourages the use of separate email addresses for business and personal use, and a secondary email account is one way to do this.

CyberGuru can walk you through the selection of appropriate email addresses when you set up a domain name, website or email hosting package, or a Microsoft Office 365 environment. lf we can assist you in any way, please contact us.

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