Are you measuring your website traffic?

For any business to be successful in its inbound marketing program, website activity must be measured and translated into meaningful data for management.  This is called Website Traffic Analysis.  You should be able to analyze and show a  full customer picture across your website.

When DDKinfotech starts working with a Client, one of the most common question asked is which web analytics tool to use.  There are number of options available, depending on the needs and what sort of information you are trying to gather from  the data set that you collect from your website.  However, for most small businesses, Google Analytics is a great package, because of its ease of installation and it provides a wealth of information for no cost.

To help Clients understand the key data points to measure, DDKinfotech is providing below a list of top metrics to monitor on an ongoing basis.

1. Audience overview

When you login into Google Analytics dashboard, one of the first thing you will see is the Audience overview.  This section provides critical information on the number of Visits, Unique Visitors, Page Views, Pages Visited, average visit duration and bounce rate.   These metrics provide a good summary of how your website is performing overall. This is true because not only can you determine how many people are coming to your site, but also how much content they're looking at and how long they're staying. Both of these speak directly to visitor engagement.

If you're just starting out, the best thing to do is compare these numbers month over month to look for trends or changes in visitor behavior. If your inbound marketing program is effective, you'll see an increase in several of these categories.

2. Sources

This is another important metric. Sources refers to where, exactly, your site visitors are coming from.  This is one of the key metric, as it will help you determine just what platforms are best for reaching majority of your audience.   As an example, if you see that most of your site visitors are finding you on facebook, but nothing from linkedin, you know where you should be concentrating your social media campaigns.

3.  Content
Content is king.  Content Strategy is key for attracting new visitors and keeping existing ones.  Google analytics tool can help you determine how your content is doing, and if there are any gaps.  The average visit time will help you determine whether or not site visitors are reading your site content, this will be a good indication whether your site content is useful or not.

4. Landing and exit pages
This metric is located under the site content in the content menu.  Landing and exit pages are important metric because it lets you know where visitors are entering your site and where they're exiting. For businesses not leveraging a complex pay per click (PPC) or SEO strategy, the most popular landing page will be your home page. However, when and where site visitors are leaving your site can be very telling about your website and the associated content.
Beyond content exploration, knowing from which page visitors are exiting  will determine the overall bounce rate. If a high number of visitors exit the site from the same page it may indicate dissatisfaction with content or the lack of a clear call to action. It may also mean visitors were looking for a specific piece of content but became frustrated and left when they couldn't find it. If you notice a high concentration of visitors exiting the site from the same page, it should be a clue that you need to review that content.

Google analytics can provide powerful insight into any internet marketing efforts and optimization.  

Does your business have a Cyber Security Plan?

Why is a cyber security plan essential for a small business? If you are a small business owner, don’t think that hackers are not interested in you or your data. A recent story in Entrepreneur magazine, relying on data provided by computer security company Symantec, indicated that small businesses with one to 250 employees suffered 30 percent of all cyber crimes this past year.

End point protection is important

Any cyber security plan begins with an anti-virus software. This software is critical for small business owners. Anti-virus isn’t the only protection that is needed today, but companies that don’t have any anti-virus protection are setting themselves up for an extensive hack.

Employee Education

Business owners need to make sure that their employees are aware of the need for deleting suspicious email messages, whether sent by known or unknown sources. Businesses must educate their employees never to click on the links contained in suspicious email messages. Anti-malware, Firewalls, intrusion protection and web filtering are some additional steps that small businesses can take to mitigate the risks that are prevalent today.

DDKinfotech has been helping small businesses mitigate the risks of cyber attacks.   Call us today at 212.997.0600 and speak to an expert regarding your Cyber Security needs.

A case for Email Archiving - Why your Email Need Protection and Preservation - Today

Why Email Archiving is Important

1. Protecting IP

Businesses today of all sizes need the value of their intellectual property to be maintained in perpetuity. They want to assure that their repository is 100% accurate, even if an employee accidentally or deliberately deletes their email.

2. eDiscovery

Many government agencies and regulations require certain stringent levels of security, permanence and auditability for business email. This includes FRCP, SEC, GLBA, HIPAA, HITECH, SOX, and more.

3. Compliance

Businesses need to cut the risk and costs of complying with discovery requests. They need their emails preserved and protected for the lifetime of the business. They also need it to be simple to produce emails to comply with legal requests or audits.

How Email Archiving Improves Protection

Email Archiving adds layers of protection beyond standard levels

System Downtime & Security, Spam and Viruses, Message Loss (Accidental & Deliberate) are Standard protection that's fundamental to your cloud service. Accidental and Deliberate deletions, Regulations and Litigation are threats that would require Email Archiving. Email Archiving offers protection against legal, regulatory and personnel threats that go beyond the data security and reliability you may already receive.
DDKinfotech specializes in Hosted Exchange Services. DDKinfotech's hosted Exchange 2013 lets your company communicate and collaborate more effectively than with any other email platform. Optionally we offer services that address Compliance and Email archival.
Contact us at 212.997.0600 to discuss how DDKinfotech can customize a Email Archive and compliance solution to meet your specific business needs.

Office 2010 Problems Caused by Microsoft Critical Update KB2589275

On Tuesday, September 10, Microsoft released a critical update that caused Office application files to become disassociated with the actual application. (See Microsoft KB2589275 – Critical Update for Office 2010 update: September 10, 2013)
Issue: Microsoft Office application icons disappear and are replaced by general MS Office orange icon.
If you have installed this update and are experiencing problems, the following three solutions can be used to resolve them:

1. Right click on the general MS Office icon that replaced the correct icon; select "Open with"; select the correct Office application; select "Always use this application"; the file icon will revert back to the correct Office application icon.
2. Uninstall the update and hide it on the Windows update website and/or blacklist it on the ITSupport Portal per the article above.
3. Run the command for MS Word with the /r parameter. Click on Start; Hit Run; Type “winword.exe /r”

Solution 3 should launch the application configuration and temporarily fixes file associations issue without uninstalling this update.
DDKinfotech's Managed Services Clients should not face this issue as we have blacklisted this update from being installed.

It has become essential to take measures to protect your business PCs from numerous threats encountered these days. Threats to your business and business productivity are more pervasive than ever. Hackers use various techniques that make Malware protection extremely difficult.
1. Use Endpoint Protection:  Use antivirus software from a reputable company.  Also, make sure that Endpoint protection you are using has Malware protection and Spyware protection built in.  As long as you have a valid subscription, your antivirus will automatically update from the Internet. Most Virus Protection companies push updates several times a day. Malware on the Internet entices users to download free Security software, so make sure that you are downloading  Security software from a reputable company and not some malware that poses itself as Security software. If you are not sure you should discuss this with your IT department or someone knowledgeable.
2. Keep your Operating Systems up to date: Operating System vulnerabilities are released on a regular basis and most are addressed through regular updates. You should regularly check for updates for your operating systems. At work check with your techs to see how they handle this. Most IT departments use Management software to push Operating system updates to all the computers.
3. Remove all Unnecessary software: Remove software that is unnecessary or not needed. This will reduce the attack surface, this is extremely important on servers. Make sure you backup any data before removing any programs.
4. Backup your data: Make sure you have current backup all the time. In case you were attacked by a virus, or your system crashed or a piece of hardware in your computer failed, you will have a backup to revert to.
5. Be very Wary of Unexpected Emails and Attachments:  Be very very wary of emails from people you know and you don't know. If you receive an email from someone you don't know, especially if it is sent to a group of people, immediately delete it. If the email is coming from a source you do know but it is unexpected and has attachment and or links that you don't recognize or are not expecting, more than likely that person's email account has been compromised and the hacker is trying to spread the attack to you, as your contact was in the person's email account.
6. Don't click on Internet Links you don't recognize:  Web links can connect you to websites and webpages that may be hosting malicious software which will infect your system without your knowledge. Only click on links from a source you know and trust. The easiest way to find out whether a link may be illegitimate is to hover your mouse over the link to see where it is taking you. Most email programs offer a preview of the actual link when you hover over.
7. Passwords: Enable passwords and use strong passwords. Do not use same passwords for all the services that you use. If you use different passwords for different services at least not all your accounts will get compromised if a hacker was to get hold of one of your passwords.
8. Keep Applications Updated: All PCs have software such as Java, Flash, Adobe Reader installed these days. These software are essential to carry out transactions and activities on the Internet. There have been known vulnerabilities in these software. Keeping these applications up-to-date is essential and will protect you from many vulnerabilities.
DDKinfotech specializes in Managed Services. Our Managed Services lets you focus on growing your business, instead of worrying about IT. Our Managed Service Offering comes with Antivirus, Spyware, Malware protection, OS Patch Management, 3rd Party Patch Management, Asset Management and system monitoring. Also, included is our secure remote access to your office desktop.
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