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Issue #19 – Jan 2011

Inner Circle Members Resource LetterHow-to internet business strategies, thoughts, news & opinions.

In-fact it’s just like a workshop in every issue!

elcome to 2011. I hope that everyone and their families had a great Christmas and new year. My families’ thoughts are with those around Australia, Queensland in

particular, that have been ravaged by floods over this holiday break. Donate here if you can. The Premiers Dept have actually setup a good website for this. I was impressed that a government IT department could do something right for a change. Well another year is apon us and I’m very excited by it. I don’t set new years’

resolutions, since I define goals and work towards them all year round. But for those that do, I congratulate you. Setting goals is important for growth. Let me share with you one of my non business goals I set myself from a few months ago. To listen (actually listen) to my wife. You might think it silly, but it was an area I was lacking in, and I’ve improved to about 80%. I’ve been told that nothing less than 100% is acceptable. With a 6 month target on it, and 2 months to go, I have to really push for that last 20%. Of course I have business goals to achieve and targets to meet and exceed, but I thought I’d share

something more personal as an example. Moving on to other news, the spate of website hacking

attacks hasn’t ceased over the holiday period. I believe it’s worse than ever. Last month was particularly bad. In fact one member had their site turned into a porn site. Not good at all. The hackers broke in through insecure scripts that were not secure. Their aim is to either send out spam via your account or

piggy back off your website account to launch a phishing scam site, mimicking banks to lure people to submit their login credentials. If this fails or they are thwarted in their attempts, some hackers can become vindictive and malicious

causing major damage to your website. It is so important to keep your website software up to date with any security upgrades that become

available. Are you using Joomla, phpBB3, Wordpress, Drupal, the list goes on. Any software at all that relies on a

database and you could be in danger of being hacked.

W

From The Desk Of Aaron Dwyer (owner)

This newsletter is delivered digitally to help the environment

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Issue #18 – Dec 2010

Great software such as Joomla, Wordpress release updates all the time, to the point where it’s hard to keep up with the security upgrades. But it’s vital that you do. If you can’t personally do it, since these upgrades can be technical depending on the upgrade, then you should pay someone to do it. We can put you on a maintenance plan to make sure you keep up to date with your software to save you

the money it will cost to fix any issues that hackers create. Contact us for more info. Quite frankly I’m amazed at some businesses that don’t put the money into their online business security.

Same goes for backups. This is one of those items such as insurance that you don’t need until you need it. Just because your business is online doesn’t mean it’s any different to you putting security screens on

your buildings and getting an alarm system installed. You have to protect what should be one of your greatest businesses assets, your website. I say should be,

because some of my members have such bad websites that don’t bring in any leads / sales / or even rapport building, that I’m ashamed on their behalf. (If this is you, then contact me to get you sorted out). Several members have recently had a taste of being hacked due to their software not being kept up to

date. I’ve stepped in to support those members free of charge, but that is no longer going to happen. The

cleanup of a hacked account can be very time consuming, and as such those costs will be passed on. The Terms of Service of hosting with Netrospect have changed around this area of hackers and accounts

being compromised. You can follow that link to refresh yourself with them. I’ll outline the new parts here. Essentially the new policy is that we scan daily for suspicious files on the server. This is not 100%

accurate but it’s very good. Once a breach has been identified, we will quarantine (remove) the offending files from your account to avoid the problem getting worse. We will change your web hosting account password and you will be notified via email with further instructions. This first breach will not incur any penalty fees. If we have to get involved to either restore a backup or any web development / reconstructive / software

upgrade work required, it will be billed out at the standard hourly rate. I can’t force you to upgrade your software, that’s up to you, however any future breaches after the first

breach that occurs while your software remains out of date will incur penalty fees. Those penalty fees will be determined by the amount of damage (if any) caused by your account being breached. If you don’t wish to upgrade your software, and continually get hacked, then quite simply you’ll be

looking for another hosting provider. The security of our servers and all the members that use them remains a top priority.

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Issue #18 – Dec 2010

I could go on, but that’s my rant for this month. Hope you enjoyed my Christmas video on the blog. It’s

become a tradition, and I look forward to raising the bar for Christmas 2011. Aaron

Web Site Tip #14 – Is your website mobile ready??

This month let’s talk going mobile! Is your website mobile phone friendly. It needs to be. Mobile phone

friendly websites are nothing new, but it’s getting to the point where businesses need to start taking action or face losing visitors to their competitors that are on top of this.

Let’s look at the stats. Source: Sydney Morning Herald. Nearly half of all Australian mobile phone users now own an internet-capable phone, but only a third accesses the web regularly on them, according to new research by The Nielsen Company.

Australians’ ownership of internet phones now sits at 43 per cent, with 29 per cent regularly using it to search, email, find maps and to share their lives on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Internet searches are the most popular online activity on the phones. Some 73 per cent of users conduct online searches by mobile now, compared with 30 per cent a year ago.

Other common uses include checking news and weather (59 per cent, up 18 points), email (58 per cent, up 20 points), maps and directions (56 per cent, up 24 points) and social networking (39 per cent, up 25 points).

According to Nielsen, Telstra has seen mobile data traffic on its Next G™ network double every eight months for the past two years.

So what this tells us, is that we need to cater for these visitors. Smart phones have small screens.

Therefore when you try to fit a website that was designed for a desktop size screen into a smart phone, you only get to see the top left corner of it if you are lucky, and then you need to scroll around to find what you want. Some websites use flash technology which doesn’t work on phones, so the visitor basically can’t use your site.

Bottom line. You need a mobile friendly version of your website, one that is designed to fit onto a small

screen. When a mobile phone visitor comes to your website, your website detects the small browser and shows

them the small mobile friendly website, instead of the large desktop version. I mentioned last month about using a Wordpress plugin called WPTouch to give your website a new

theme and handle the mobile phone sensing and switching technology side of the equation.

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Issue #18 – Dec 2010

Joomla has a variety of pre packaged extensions that can be used. Other great content management

systems should have the ability to sense and switch themes. If you have a non content management system or custom website, then you will need to craft your own.

By far the simplest way is to install Wordpress onto a subdomain so you can manage it as an aside to your existing website.

So create a subdomain using your hosting control panel. Call it ‘m’, short for mobile. This will end up

looking like this. m.yourwebsite.com Then install Wordpress into that subdirectory. Use Fantastico to install without all the fuss, under the

Software area in your hosting control panel. Install the WPTouch plugin to give you a mobile theme. Then you just need some sensing and switching software to detect a mobile phone. I recommend going for either a PHP solution or a .htaccess solution. Follow those links for more info.

Now the whole idea behind a mobile website is that it’s small, fast to load, without any bloat that would

normally be on a desktop version of your website. You should make the main business information for the mobile visitor on the homepage of the mobile website. Contact details, Google Map, hours of operation, basic info that people are looking for, etc.

Of course doing all that requires a level of technical knowledge. So if you are like 90% of business

owners that aren’t technically inclined and also those that are don’t have the time, then you should contact us today to get your mobile website built and online in just a couple of days.

Testimonial of the Month “Time and time again I have requested assistance from Netrospect and have received exceptional

customer service each and every time. When I logged a support ticket in the early hours of last Christmas Eve, I never expected it to be answered and resolved before 7:00am that day! Aaron is truly dedicated towards making our hosting experience successful and easy!” Steve Dobe – www.puzzledomain.com

I’m always looking for more testimonials, so if we have helped you in any way that has impressed you and made you think “I’m glad I have Netrospect looking after my website and emails”, I’d really appreciate it if you could send me an email about it. A couple of sentences is all it takes. Anyone that sends me a testimonial will get 1 month FREE web hosting credit.

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Issue #18 – Dec 2010

Offers of the Month

This month you get 2 offers. Pick one or both of them. Just email in to request them. 1) Let us build your mobile website for you. ½ price @ $300 (normally $600). Limit to only the first 3

businesses and only for 7 days, until the 18th Jan 2011. If you aren’t running a content management system, then we’ll give you a mobile friendly homepage with all your main business information, plus 2 sub pages.

2) Get your Brisbane business in the news! Your business can be promoted on News In Brisbane, a

Brisbane internet news website, that I’ve setup with Ray Playle. Every business owner knows you have to promote your business and that news worthy information always out-performs display advertising.

Here’s your chance to get a fresh news story for exposure of your business. ½ price @ $150 (normally $300). Limit to only the first 3 businesses and only for 7 days, until the 18th Jan 2011. We’ll include 2 photos and 2 links back to your website in the story. The best part is the press release that we create for you will be sent out to online press release sites. Giving you true value, and the possibility for other news outlets both online and traditional print media to pick up your story. The backlinks across www.newsinbrisbane.com.au and the online press release sites that will be created to increase your search engine rankings are also a major benefit.

Member Showcase of the Month

This month I’d like to showcase Chris Woodford and List on Real Estate.

www.list-on-realestate.com.au has been a member since Jul 2009. List on Real Estate ha simple principle. Offering the private sellechance to get listed on realestatdomain.com.au, homehound.com.auto be listed on those services which dominate the real estate market online in Australia, you have to go through a high priced agency. Cout what they offer. I’ve sold privately before an

as r a

e.com.au, . Normally

heck d would have used their service if it had of been

around at that time to get my house listed online. If your house isn’t for sale online, good luck.

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Issue #18 – Dec 2010

Don’t Forget About Your Referral Bonuses

Every time you refer a new member to us, we will credit your account with THREE (3) months free web hosting. So simple it just works. Spread the word. A new member can leave your name in the signup form so you get credit for the referral.

Thank you to our loyal members that continue to refer new businesses to us... Maria Pesavento – www.pesavento.biz Praveen Chandrasekhar – www.advertisingworks.com.au

New Inner Circle Members

Welcome to our newest members enjoying the benefits of becoming a part of our inner circle. Alex Witthoft – www.witthoft.com.au Peter Kao – www.whitleyplace.com.au Steve Langford – www.tarraginditigers.com.au Narelle Dickinson – www.psychologytraining.com.au John Russell – www.cst.org.au Brennan Henzel – www.kingscountrypark.com.au Sonya Tran – www.bardonsmiles.com.au

ARE YOU ON THE MOVE?

Don’t forget to contact the office if you are moving to a new address or changing your email address,. This is very important, since if there is an issue with your account and we can’t contact you, then your website and emails may be suspended until we can.

Quote of the Month

To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust.

George Ross

Lucky Member of the Month

Member Name : Sarina Norris Website : www.creativedecorations.com.au

If this is you, you’ve won THREE months of web hosting. (value $30 if you are on the Bronze plan). To claim your prize, you must contact us by email before Jan 31.

Issue #18 – Dec 2010

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Chuckle of the Month

Source: www.chrismadden.co.uk