Keeping your business assets secure can be difficult when you work from home. While you aren’t a massive corporate blue chip company, you are still an entity that cyber criminals may be interested in. Malware and spyware is a threat to every enterprise, large or small. If you are dealing with sensitive information or you have confidential data on your computer, then you should have cyber security at the top of your list of priorities and you should pay attention to it in your business plan. Read on to find out how you can keep your business assets secure.

Training

If you have a couple of staff working for you, it’s vital that they sign up to a cyber security policy like those examples at workable.com. This should be a contract that acts as a code of conduct. At the very least, your staff should be aware that they shouldn’t be opening dodgy email attachments and that their passwords should be random sets of letters, symbols and numbers of at least twelve characters or more. It could be wise to source the services of a company that can come in and train your staff formally. Undertake a day’s training session annually to help refresh people’s memories and keep cybersecurity high up on your agenda.

Outsource

For the maximum level of cyber security, you need to ensure that you have more than a simple Firewall. By heading to a site like esudo.com, you can outsource your cyber security requirements. These firms enable you to have all of your systems and data backed up daily. This means that should the worst happen and you get hit by a virus or adware, you can continue functioning as a business. Experts can implement anti virus software remotely and across all of your network. You could combine your cyber security requirements with your IT troubleshooting needs. This can help to free up your time to worry about more pressing aspects of your business vision.

Need To Know

With the data that you have, you need to implement a need to know policy. As your business grows and you hire more staff, you don’t have to make every file accessible to all. To be safe off site, ensure that the most sensitive documents cannot be accessed. You don’t know when your team are in a coffee shop accessing documents over an unsecured and vulnerable network. Keep these files on site only. Ensure that your team understand the dangers of unsecured networks and make sure that they don’t open that funny looking attachment within an email from a sender that they’ve never heard of before. Have an open door policy and ensure that anything that looks dodgy can be reported immediately.

Being secure online and keeping your assets safe is vital if you are to inspire customer confidence in your business. To help your business thrive in the twenty first century, you need to follow a cyber security plan to keep your venture safe and backed up.

If you’re about to launch your own small business, getting your website right is key. Not only must your company’s website convey your “why?” to the world, but you want your site visitors to take action on a first visit. A solid marketing strategy will only get you so far: once you’ve invested money to get your customers to your website through PPC, how do you get them to stick around? Here are some great hacks to help you ensure your website makes the maximum impact.

Remember the Five-Second Rule

How long would you guess that you have to catch a site visitor’s attention? The answer is less than five seconds! Within five seconds, a new site visitor decides to either click away or hang around for a little longer and check out what you have to offer. That means your website needs to either interest your audience, or impress them, or simply grab their attention before the five-second clock runs down.

Harness Creativity

But how do you make the most of the five-second rule? Like many of the big questions in business, the answer is: be creative. Your business home page should offer your audience something amazing. Whether it’s an amazingly succinct and original line of copy, an image that takes your breath away, or incredible web design that pleases the eye, it’s a good idea to lead with something that gets the tone of your business across and makes a strong first impression.

Remember, you don’t have to start selling your product from the word “go”. Rather, use the first five seconds to convince your audience that there is more to see and engage with. While you may feel confident building a website yourself, you’re more likely to hit the mark with the help of a well-regarded web design company.

Your Blog Must Do Double-Duty

For maximum impact and conversion potential, every aspect of your website should do two things at once. For example, your blog content should both help you with your search engine optimisation and also engage your audience. So if you hire a content writer who is skilled at SEO but can’t connect with your audience, you will be losing out on the enormous potential for brand reputation building. Aim for copy and blog content that simultaneously brings you to the top of the pile SEO-wise, and positions your business as a source of credible, informative content about the issues your customer-base cares about.

Get Optimised for Mobile

Just as a blog that does not engage your audience is a wasted opportunity, you’re missing a trick if your website layout looks lovely on desktop but is hardly comprehensible on mobile. These days a significant proportion of all web activity is done via mobile, whether by phone, tablet or even Apple watch. Any web designer worth their salt will be able to guarantee a slick mobile format.

Whether you’re just about to launch, or you’ve been running for a while but feel you need a reboot, nailing your business’s website is an essential step towards the success of your startup. These tips will help you avoid the worst pitfalls and create a website that dazzles and converts.

In theory, your employees should be good for your business.

Providing you have taken care during the hiring process, the people you employ should help you achieve your various business goals.

However…

If your employees are guilty of any of the following, your business might not prosper at all. Take a look, and then follow our suggestions to protect your business from harm.
#1: Bad mouthing you to others

Your employees should be your greatest ambassadors, using word-of-mouth to promote your business. However, if you have done anything to upset your employees, then the words coming out of their mouths might be less than pleasant when they are talking about you to others. By this, we are also referring to the comments they might post on social media and business review sites. Your reputation will take a nose-dive, and consequently, so will that of your business.

Tip: Allow for employee feedback so they will be more inclined to speak to you about any grievances they might have with you. You can do this by operating an open-door policy and providing feedback forms on a regular basis. You should also find ways to show your employees that you care for them, as this way, the only words they will be using about you should be positive rather than negative.

#2: Leaking sensitive information

For starters, your gossiping employees might give away sensitive information when talking about your business to others. They might vent their frustrations about one of your customers, for example, or they might leak information that should only be kept in-house. Secondly, your employees might leak information through a data breach. If they regularly use work devices containing customer and company data outside of the workplace, disaster might strike should they fall prey to a hacking attempt, or should they accidentally lose their devices on their daily commute.

Tip: Policies need to be put in place that forbid your employees talking about sensitive areas of your business to others. You might consider training your employees on this matter too, with reminders on why their loose tongues might be bad for your business. When it comes to the information stored on your employees’ devices, you might want to give them cybersecurity training to encourage safe and responsible behavior. You should also assess the devices they use, and increase their security capabilities with firewalls, antivirus software, and encryption tools along the lines of these FirstNet VPN solutions.

#3: Showing poor productivity

You’re wasting money on employees who underperform on a regular basis, and you won’t meet your important deadlines either. As an employer, you need to get to the bottom of why productivity levels are low, as while it could be because you have lazy employees to contend with, there might also be specific reasons that pertain to your business.

Tip: There are all kinds of reasons for poor productivity, and you can read about some of them in the linked article. Consider which, if any, are relevant to your business, and then take the necessary steps to boost the performance of your employees. And as we have already suggested, you should allow for employee feedback. If there are any pressing issues that are affecting their performance at work, they will have the opportunity to tell you about them at an early stage. You can then take the necessary next steps to support them at work.

Finally

Your employees should be your greatest asset, but they might also be the people who bring down your business if the listed behaviors are true of them. Follow our suggestions then, and take the necessary steps to protect your business from the risk of harm.