Month: February 2018

Development

7 Ways to Establish Credibility for Your Business

on February 23, 2018

With many new startups popping up every day, it’s only a matter of time before your business gets lost in the crowd. This is because every established name out there has something new business lack, in particular, credibility.

The very first step to achieve that credibility is, of course, to come up with a professional name using a business name generator. Without a credible name, your business will have a hard time convincing new customer into buying your products or services.

What’s more, stockholders will be even more skeptical before they decide whether it is prudent to invest their money into your growing business. The best way to convince all of these skeptics and eliminate any remaining doubt about your business is by first establishing some credibility and these are the seven ways to do so.

1. Listen to your consumers

Let’s face it, nobody likes it when their opinions don’t matter and their voices fall on deaf ears. As Mike from Bootstrap Business puts it, establish credibility by listening to your customers. Be known as the brand that actually cares. If your target audience thinks something is a really bad idea, consider changing it and let them know you are doing so. For example, just recently EA games broke the record on Reddit by getting the most downvoted post in the site’s history with their post about microtransactions in their new Star Wars Battlefront 2 video game. The backlash was so severe that they have removed micro-transactions completely in the end. Therefore, make sure that your community is behind you or you’ll find yourself with no one to sell your products to.

2. Provide only the best quality products or services possible

Let your product speak for itself. If you offer the best burgers in town, for a reasonable price, it’ll do the marketing for you. Word of mouth marketing is essential for new businesses as this will be the thing that establishes your credibility with your initial customers. Moreover, if you develop a bad reputation at the very start it’ll be increasingly difficult for you to find and retain new customers. Don’t go down that road and offer only the best quality services that you can.

3. Be honest with your customers

There’s nothing worse than blatantly lying to your clients. Eventually, the truth will come out and your credibility will take a huge hit from which it may not recover. If the jackets you’re selling aren’t made of real leather, then say so. If you do, your business will become known for dishonesty and that’s not something that just goes away. In the business world, honesty goes a long way and it’ll do wonders for your credibility with both partners and clients alike.

4. Be reliable

You’re the new kid on the block, you need to prove yourself first. Don’t make the mistake of being all talk and no action. Establish your credibility by consistently being reliable. Let business partners know that they can always count on you to uphold your end of the bargain. For example, reassure them by offering a performance bond to your clients as insurance that you’ll get the job done. In other words, make them an offer they cannot refuse.

5. Get client testimonials

If you’ve been doing business for some time now, you’ve probably come across partners and other business associates on your entrepreneur journey. Chances are they liked working with you and are more than willing to vouch for your good name. Use this to your advantage and put the testimonials of these clients on your website. Just make sure that they don’t have a bad reputation, otherwise, you’ll do more harm than good to your brand.

6. Announce reached milestones

People absolutely love to see progress. Get the hype train going and post about the progress your business has made on the internet. Has your business received a large outside investment? Announce it on your website. One hundredth customer milestone reached? Post it on Facebook and Twitter. Moving to a new office, introducing a new quality management document control and so on and so forth. Whatever it takes to keep the momentum going, just remember to stay positive.

7. Stay active on social media

Finally, get noticed on social media to gain some credibility there as well. Now, this kind of credibility is a bit different but it’s important nonetheless. Social media platforms are a good way to interact with your customers, the main thing is to stay consistent with your tone, so people can get to know you in a sense. For example, look at Wendy’s fast food chain. Their snarky tweets and rough comebacks made their Twitter profile go viral overnight. Now they use this roasting strategy as their social media trademark, it’s what defines them as Wendy’s and sets them apart from McDonald’s and Burger King.

In conclusion, establishing good credibility in the early stages is crucial if you plan on really kickstarting your business later on. Hence, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by offering poor customer service and bad quality products or you’ll just lose the same. Be ahead of your competitors and lead by example.

Development

What Are The Top 5 Software Development Trends For 2018?

on February 20, 2018

Software Development is currently considered the world’s best job. This is because we all use some sort of software in our everyday lives ranging from Wall Street to your living room and oil rigs to video games. Considering these things, 2018 will prove to be an important and exciting for developers and software.

Without additional upheaval, we are presenting 5 software development trends that will govern 2018.

Infographic created by Donnelley Financial Solutions, a financial consolidation software provider

1.  Demand for Blockchain Developers Will Dramatically Upsurge

The blockchain is a constantly expanding list of records, known as blocks; they are secured and connected using cryptography. This technology has dignified to revolutionize almost every industry.

In 2018 it is expected that companies in all industries are going to create apps on blockchain platforms. This indicates that demand for blockchain will dramatically upsurge. According to the various analysis conducted in 2016, the number of blockchain developers worldwide was 5000 only. With the conviction that quantity increased in 2017, nevertheless, it still diminishes in contrast to more than 18 million Java developers. 2018 will prove to be a gold rush for developers who commit themselves to the blockchain, and the majority of them will come away a whole lot richer.

2.  IoT Gets Pushed To The Edge

Wearables like Apple and Fitbit get the majority of the public attention; however, they are just a niche in the enormous IoT ecosystem. Almost all the things are transforming into the data-gathering device; from living rooms to sea oil rigs and from roads to cars. These devices collect the huge quantity of data, and IT companies are researching about the quicker and cheaper techniques of processing it all. This is where edge computing is expected to play its role in this year.

Edge computing utilizes a set of microdata centers to practice data close to the device, or at the “edge” of the system. Giving out on the edge saves money and time from transferring all of the data to a consolidated data center. This means IoT devices will be able to implement quicker actual-time data analytics, despite being in a place that has poor connectivity. This a big blessing for end users.

3.  Cyber Security Reaches A Modulation Point

There are two categories of cybersecurity initiatives: internal and external. Under internal cybersecurity initiative, businesses concentrate on creating security within their software. DevOps teams must concentrate on systematizing security testing into their software development lifespan. This will assist to make sure that susceptibilities are not familiarized during development.

Under external cybersecurity initiative, venture capitalists are overflowing cybersecurity startups with capital, to $3.4 Billion in 2016. As per Cruchbase Unicorn Leaderboard, there were five cybersecurity startups of worth exceeding one billion dollars in 2016. In 2018, we are expected to see more. You can follow CNS blog to keep track of the latest cyber security trends.

4.  Artificial Intelligence Becomes The Basic Need

Forrester forecasts that AI will haze the limitations between unstructured and structured data, and 50% of CDO’s will begin to report straight to the CEO. As a consequence, more than 13% of data relevant jobs on Indeed.com are of data engineers, in comparison with one percent of data scientists. This replicates the requirement for action-oriented, practical data professionals that can unswervingly influence the bottom line.

5.  Virtual Reality Perhaps Go Mainstream

2017 was a complete year of commercially-available, high-end VR headsets. Facebook’s HTC Vive and Oculus Rift commanded the technique in full-power VR systems (as opposition to smartphone-powered systems like the Galaxy Gear VR), but acceptance has been dawdling. Forecasters predict less than one million units to be sold between the two.

However, both of these systems are expected to make big moves in a market in 2018. HTC and Facebook have both decreased the prices significantly on their top headsets. HTC proclaimed a separate headset just weeks after Facebook exposed the Oculus Go. Both of these “lite” headsets will begin at a lower price point to appeal new users (the Oculus Go will begin at $199).

Conclusion

After viewing the discussion above, it can be said that all the software development companies must keep an eye in these trends. So, that they could incorporate them into their business practices while developing a software.

Author Bio:

Ray Parker is an entrepreneur and internet marketer with over 15 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization, Creative Writing and Digital Marketing with IQVIS. He has worked with several clients from all over the globe to offer his services in various domains with a proven track record of success.

Insights

Important Steps You Need to Take In Order Keep Your Website Protected

on February 20, 2018

Every online business has to invest in some form of defense against cyber-attacks. Luckily, setting up proper online security has never been easier, thanks to the wealth of resources available online on the topic. The best approach in this matter is to establish multiple layers of defense so that there are fail-safes in place in case something goes wrong. In the rest of this article, we will bring you up to speed with a number of established methods for improving website security, which you can then combine to create a truly impregnable defense system.

Keep Your CMS Up-To-Date

Modern e-commerce websites rely on content delivery and management systems (CMS for short) such as Magento, Drupal or WordPress to conduct their business. These frameworks are popular for a reason – they make the tasks of website creation and maintenance much more convenient. If your company is using one of these software suites, make sure you are always running the latest stable version. Older versions of software often have security holes that hackers can exploit to compromise your website. If you can’t be bothered to constantly check whether your website is running the latest version of CMS, be sure to turn on automatic updates.

Create Strong Passwords

Every computer user should know by now that creating strong passwords is the bare minimum when it comes to protecting yourself online. A good password should include letters and numbers in different cases, combined with other punctuation marks. Avoid familiar dates, names and common words at all costs as well. If you have trouble remembering your passwords, try using password management software. They are a much more effective way of keeping track of passwords, and some even offer the option of creating random ones for one time use.

Outsource Security

Setting up adequate security for a website can take its toll on company resources, especially for smaller businesses. It can be a resource-intensive, time-consuming process, which is why some companies opt to seek third-party assistance. IT security experts from firms like the Picnet IT Company can offer a wide range of services at various budget levels. This is especially advisable for companies that lack a full-time IT department, as worrying about security measures often falls on the back of webmasters who are already buried with work as it is.

Monitor For File Changes

A common tell that a site has been hijacked is sudden file changes. These are often hard to notice for larger websites with lots of moving parts, which is you should set up a monitoring system to track these changes for you. That way, you will be able to tell who and when is making the changes to which files. A good rule of thumb is that if your developer is changing something, it is probably safe, and everything else should be viewed with suspicion.

Be On The Lookout For Malware

Malicious software has been around since the early days of the internet. These programs can cause all sorts of harm, including creating backdoors for further attacks, loading up malicious code, spying, stealing credit card information and personal data, and more. Malware is one of the most common means of attacking a website. To find out whether your site is being compromised, it is necessary to do a thorough scan of every file and folder on the server. There are plenty of software suites on the market that can detect and remove suspicious-looking code. Be sure to check for malware at least on a weekly basis, if not daily.

Carefully Observe User Behavior

Most websites today allow visitors to create user accounts to access particular features. It is therefore important to assign appropriate permissions to each user. Managing permissions is essential in order to prevent attacks from compromised accounts. Always be on the lookout for suspicious user behavior, such as excessive access requests, downloads, changes in account information, etc. When a user keeps accessing your websites from different IPs constantly, this can also be a sign of an attack. It goes without saying that you should promptly ban users as soon as they start displaying malicious behavior.

Protect Transaction Data

E-commerce business usually takes the steps to at least handle transaction data in a secure manner, usually through the use of third-party payment service providers such as PayPal. However, since getting a hold of payment data is such a lucrative prospect, websites are constantly being attacked in order to obtain it. Malware is the usual culprit during these attacks, so usual anti-malware measures apply. Additional, adding a layer of encryption on files that contain transaction data ensures that even if security is breached, hackers will end up with data that they can’t immediately use, giving you the time to take necessary measures to address the situation.

Set Up A Firewall

The most common ways to hack a website are SQL injections, application vulnerability exploits, and malicious code. Setting up a firewall is the first line of defense against these sorts of attacks. Firewalls come in two types, hardware-based ones, and software solutions. The modern operating system almost always includes firewall software, so make sure it is turned on. Hardware solutions come in the form of routers and modems, which can block data coming from suspicious IP addresses on the web. The best practice is to combine the two for maximum safety.

Test For Vulnerabilities

The internet is always undergoing some form of change. New software gets released, different standards get adopted, and user behavior is constantly evolving, and hackers are coming up with new methods of attack. New threats are being found out daily, and one way to stay ahead of the curve is to constantly test your defenses of possible vulnerabilities. There are two basic ways to test your website for pathways of an incursion. The first is to send particular queries to your website to see how it handles unusual requests. If it starts behaving in ways it shouldn’t, you can make the appropriate adjustments. The second way is more thorough penetration testing, which works by emulating an actual attack, and seeing if your defenses can hold.

Conclusion

While no amount of security will guarantee that your website will not fall under attack, adopting some of the practices which we have outlined above will go a long way in giving your site a fighting chance against common threats. Try to remain vigilant at all times, and respond quickly as soon as you become aware that your site is being hacked.