Evaluation of my blog

Evaluation of my blog

Challenges of creating and maintaining my blog?

Firstly, creating my blog was a challenge as I couldn’t decide what colour or style my background was going to be due to the variety of backgrounds I could have chosen from. I got the idea to post a new page in my blog every two to three weeks to keep my viewers excited about what the next topic I am going to give advice about.

Was it easy to source the necessary information?

I found it quite easy to find the information that I wanted to use for my blog. The websites that I used had lots of the relevant information that was required to complete this task. There were a few aspects of the government support post that I found difficult finding but I managed to pull through.

Do I think my blog was effective?

I think that my blog was very effective as I have acquired what I have set out to achieve and have received more viewers that I expected to.

How successful was my marketing strategies and did I succeed in gaining readers?

I believe that my strategy to gain readers worked very well as I have received over 450 views for my blog which shows that it has been interesting and in my eyes, successful. I think that I enticed more viewers to come back and to look at my other posts in my blog.

Did I enjoy the task?

I thoroughly enjoyed the task that I was given and was delighted with the amount of views that I have received. I would happily create another blog so that I can guide the viewers that I have already received on even more facts and knowledge about online business ideas.

How would I improve my blog and what would I do differently?

To improve my blog I would try to make it more colourful to make it stand out more, include a few more images to make it more pleasing to the eye and also to offer more inspiration to start up a business online as it can seem a daunting task in today’s world.

Government Legislation

E-Commerce Regulations 2002

In 2002 EU issued that all member states must implement these regulations. These must be taken in to account by any business trading online and are very important to identify and to be made aware of.

The whole purpose of the legislation is to make sure the free movement of 'information society services' across Europe and to inspire greater use of e-commerce by breaking down barriers.

Key features of the legislation:

• Online selling and advertising is subject to UK law if established in the UK.
•  Established outside of UK you have the freedom to choose which applicable law to abide by.
• Recipients of online services must be provided with full details of the trader and how to process the transaction from start to finish.
• Online services providers are exempt from liability for the content they convey or store in specified circumstances.
•  Changes to the powers of enforcement authorities, such as Trading Standards Departments and the Office of Fair Trading.
• Consumer Protection Distance Selling Regulations.
• Gives extra protection to consumers who shops by phone, mail order, via the internet or digital TV. These include: Rights to receive clear information about goods and services before deciding to buy and protection from credit card fraud.

The Distance Selling Regulations protect a consumers rights when purchasing products/items online or over the telephone. It sets out the information the seller must give about the goods or service on offer, including:

• A description of the goods or service
• The price of the goods or service
• Delivery and any cancellation rights
• Information about the seller

The precautions that businesses need to take and the types of attacks that are involved on the internet include:

Tricking shoppers into revealing information about them by posing as a system administrator or customer service representative is known as social engineering. Social engineers use observation and a consumer’s restricted awareness of computer systems to their benefit by retrieving information that would allow them to access private accounts.

Password cracking can entail diverse types of vulnerabilities and decrypting techniques; but, the most popular form of password cracking is a brute force attempt. Brute force password attacks are used to crack an individual’s username and password for a specific website by scanning thousands of common terms, words, activities, and names until a combination of them is granted access to a server. Brute force cracking takes advantage of systems that do not require strong passwords, thus users will often use common names and activities making it simple for a password cracker to gain access to a system.

Trojan software is regarded as to be the most damaging in terms of E-Commerce security due to its proficiency to secretly connect and transmit confidential information. These programs are widened for the exact purpose of communicating without the possibility of detection. Trojans can be used to filter data from many different clients, servers, and database systems.

Server bugs are often found and patched in a timely fashion that does not allow an attacker to utilise the threat against an E-Commerce web site.

Web Development Best Practices

There are specific practices that web developers and E-Commerce administrators can utilise on their sites to minimise security threats and improve customer satisfaction. Customer passwords should never be stored directly on the web server in either plain text or encrypted form.

Security Methods

Web developers and security professionals must implement and utilise effective security techniques and policies. Technology management must follow the three R’s of security – recognise, resist, and recover. Sound security practices include the use of firewalls, threat detection, encryptions, authentication methods, software updates, and penetration testing.

Firewalls

A firewall’s primary use is to filter out communications that may be threatening to a system. It limits traffic to a system and only allows pre-determined activity to pass through its filter. Firewalls can also be configured so that connections are only authenticated if they are from a specific source machine.

Database Encryption Techniques

The majority of security implementations target the outside defences of a system. They attempt to isolate the server and not allow incoming transmissions. This is effective against outside intruders; however, often times administrators forget the many attacks originate from inside of an enterprise or E-Commerce department. The database is where the majority of important enterprise files reside, thus it is imperative that they be kept safe.

Secure encryption techniques must be put into place that also protect the security keys and allow access only to specific individuals. Thus, it is important to also consider things such as access management, event logging, and auditing.

It is imperative that E-Commerce firms create a risk-aware culture that instructs workers of security threats and best security practices. It does not matter how secure a system is if the individuals who are using it are not educated and understand what to do in security situations.

Effective Password Policies

Accounts should be locked out after a certain number of consecutive wrong username and password combinations. This ensures that users utilising a brute force attack will not be able to consecutively attempt login combinations. Minimum password lengths and maximum occurrences of a specific character are two of many ways to increase E-Commerce security and to provide a safer internet experience for everyone.

Government support programmes that are available locally/nationally in terms of funding and training.

The Welsh Assembly can provide information and access to support services from public, private and third sector suppliers.

The Welsh Assembly offers:

• Access to information and expertise
• General business advise
• Information on how to tender for government contracts
• Access to equality and HR information
• Access to environmental management and waste information
• Access to international trade support
• Workshops on a wide range of subjects including setting up a new business, accessing finance, trading abroad and recruiting staff

Following all of these guidelines will ensure more safety and will reduce the risks to your computer.

Marketing & Promoting

The use of search engines for an online business

The social media websites that I will  look at are - Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.

How do they operate?


How can Facebook be used for a business online?

Facebook is the largest online social networking website and has currently over 1 billion users.

More and more businesses with an online presence will link users to a Facebook page. They will also frequently use twitter and RSS feeds. Knowing how to use Facebook for business has become an essential skill to have in the job search and a vital part of online marketing strategies. Facebook has found a way to make itself the link between the brand and the consumer.

Fan Pages are targeted more toward a specific entity rather than an individual social networking with friends and family. Just because they are labelled Fan Pages does not necessarily mean that the entity is a celebrity, a band, etc.

Fan sites can be created for anything, especially online stores. More and more businesses are making use of Fan pages to target their users to a Facebook entity that represents their enterprise.

How can Twitter be used for a business online?

Twitter is a good way to promote your business online in my opinion. These facts will help you to understand why:

You will be able to connect to your customers as they themselves will be using Twitter. Twitter has become a daily routine for many people as an unsatisfied customer will leave feedback on there and then you can help them.

Branding is one of the main uses for Twitter, this allows you to connect with people and allows you to create an account.

Once you have connected with your customers you will for sure be getting feedback on how you can improve your product, your services and maybe even improve your customer’s service. Listening to them will help you in the future.

Marketing is one of the reasons to use twitter as it gets your market your product or services to more people and the best part about that is its free. You don’t have to pay.

If you have succeeded gaining some popularity with your Twitter account you will know how viral Twitter can be. This will be part of your marketing strategies that you can use in the future.

Twitter can help you increase sales and help make a profit.

Once you have engaged with Twitter then your customers/followers will be loyal to your brand for a long time.

This is a link to my Twitter account, @tampsett10

How can LinkedIn be used for a business online?

LinkedIn is the biggest professional network in the world with 100 million members. There are a lot of reasons why LinkedIn could be really valuable to your business, so let me share with you some reasons you should use LinkedIn.

To attract business clients, accelerate go to market opportunities, generate new leads & fill pipelines, shorter sales cycles, larger per deal purchases, longer clients lifecycles, to create an online community, to maintain "Top of mind awareness" and to establish cutting edge social strategies.

How to use them effectively?

The use of social media can be very useful in online businesses today as everyone goes online and most people nowadays own a computer.

It is a fact of corporate life nowadays that more and more businesses are waking up to the potential of social networking and how they can exploit it in order to gain a competitive advantage.

This could mean that Facebook or Twitter can be used purely as a marketing tool or as another customer-facing communication channel.

Did you know that around 83 percent of people in the United Kingdom own a computer.

To see some fascinating statistics about the internet and how many people use it from different countries then click on the link below:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm


Banner Adverts

All businesses with an online presence can use banner advertising. It can be efficient for any business that aims to expand their brand awareness, drives targeted traffic to their website and to generate sales in the long run.

Banner Advertising can be really effective as it is easy to target specific groups of customers for small businesses. This vastly targeted growth makes it more probable that you will catch the attention of customers who will be engrossed in what you are offering. Therefore, you can keep your costs down by only spending money on advertising where it is very likely to be successful.

Larger businesses can benefit from enlarged brand awareness using banner ads. They can also use quality banner adverts as a component of a wider web marketing strategy, potentially alongside pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation and engaging with social networking tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

For businesses of any size with an eCommerce function on their website, banner advertising can help bring potential customers directly to the right area of your website, where they can easily convert to a sale. The best strategy is to aim at one particular product or service and endorse it so it becomes an eye-catching prospect.



Podcasts

A podcast is basically an audio file that you broadcast or listen to. Similar to a magazines subscription, podcasts typically have a subscription option whereby updates can be automatically downloaded to computers or mp3 players and can be a great strategy to grab the attention of a potential audience.

Podcasts enable you to listen to what you want, whenever you want. There are podcasts available that cover topics varying from gardening to programming, so whatever your interests, you will almost certainly be able to find something that you want to listen to.

Despite the name, you do not need an iPod to listen to a podcast. A business's audience can listen to a pocast on any MP3 player, or a computer with an internet connection.

It is reasonably easy to make your own podcast. To get started all you need is a microphone, a computer and a few innovative thoughts.

Benefits of making a podcast for a business online:

Attain a new audience

People like to consume media differently, so including another media option could help to reach a new audience. Unlike video podcast, audio podcasts allow a listener to mutli-task, so they could end up listening to you on the way to work while they brows the web.

Construct positive relationships with potential listeners

Podcasts increase a business's popularity by talking about something new and interesting so that people who listen to the business's podcasts will be more entitled to like their business.

Increase advertising prospective

If a business's podcast becomes trendy, then there is a chance of being able to start selling advertising slots.

Response to customer feedback

A business is able to use a podcast for the change to address any customer concern on feedback that has been received.

Trends

Rising demand and limited supplies means that it is crunch time for the main resources such as energy, food and water. Sustainable business models are becoming a value-added imperative.

New digital platforms allow people to share information instantaneously. Privacy and security concerns will accelerate which means that companies are no longer able to hide from demands for transparency.

Nations are rapidly emerging in economic, political and cultural power. Immense opportunities are arising to meet the social environmental and economical needs in these markets.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor Analysis is a significant part in the strategic side of a business.

Competitor analysis has numerous roles in strategic planning:

• To help management understand their competitive advantages/disadvantages relative to competitors

• To generate understanding of competitors past, present and future strategies

• To provide an informed basis to develop strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the future

• To help forecast the returns that may be made from future investments