The Optus data leak – should you be worried?

The Optus data leak – should you be worried?

by | 28 Sep 2022 | Technology

by Tony Phelps, Winch Websites

In a word – yes.

Even people living under a rock (which at least wouldn’t require an internet connection and a password) will have heard about the millions of Australians included in a very large theft of data from Optus.

While the details of how it happened are yet to (and may never) be published, at the end of the day that’s for someone else to worry about. In the meantime, if you are or have been an Optus customer over the past few years, there is a distinct possibility that your personal details are ‘out there’ in internet-land.

Of course, we are all constantly handing over personal details. Think social media, bank accounts, utilities, job applications, loans, credit cards, holidays, government benefits and services… Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t avoid it unless you’re happy living like a hermit – and even then, there are situations where you absolutely have no choice in this self-service internet-powered world.

Not on Optus customer? All this still applies to you, because this is very unlikely to be the last time there’s a data breach like this.

There are 2 aspects to consider. How to protect yourself before a data breach. How to protect yourself after a data breach.

The first aspect, how to protect yourself before a data breach, is all about being careful with your data and being reasonably suspicious of everything. Received a text-message from the ATO asking to update your info or face fines? That’s a hard “No!”. Phone call from someone who wants to fix a virus on your computer? “No!”. Be very (very) careful when people contact you unexpectedly. Treat text messages, phone calls, emails and other such interactions exactly how you would if someone rocked up at your door out of the blue and started yammering at you.

The second aspect, how to protect yourself after a data breach, is very similar but a whole lot more aggro and lost time. The scumbags that have your data can use it either to trick you into giving access to sensitive stuff (eg. your bank account) or they can use your details to independently get stuff (eg. a loan, online purchases, airline tickets to get refunded, etc). Imagine – a phone call from someone saying they’re from Centrelink, they know your full name, your date of birth, your driver’s licence number, your home address, your email address…

A comprehensive list of what details of yours may be taken, how they could be used against you, and what you can do to avoid or rectify issues, can be found on the IDCare website at idcare.org/optus-db-response. It’s worth a read whether you are affected by the Optus data breach or not.

Where once upon a time the scammers operated in town centre markets or door-to-door and so were few and far between, now they operate all over the world with instant access to anyone anywhere. Your shields of cynicism need to be raised, alas, and your trust in people needs to be lowered. Sad, but a fact of modern life.

So educate yourself, and be alert but not alarmed. We already have plenty of larmeds in Australia…..

Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale

Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale

by | 9 Sep 2022 | Uncategorised

Watch an animated video of this article

If you don’t ask, you won’t get. It’s as simple as that. If you’re afraid of rejection or feeling like a burden, then you’re never going to get what you want in life. So go out there and ask for the sale. You might be surprised at what you get.

When you need to do something that has an immediate impact.

In today’s business climate, many companies are feeling the effects of the downturn and are looking for ways to increase sales. One way to do this is by emailing your audience.

Emailing your audience can be an effective way to generate sales, but it’s important to do it in a way that doesn’t come across as pushy or sales-y. The goal is to get people interested in what you have to offer without making them feel like they’re being pressured into buying something.

Here are a few tips on how to email your audience without being too pushy:

–Include a personal message: People are more likely to respond to an email that includes a personal message. This shows that you’re not just mass-emailing people and that you actually care about what they think.

–Don’t include too much information: You want to include enough information to get people interested, but you don’t want to overwhelm them with too much information at once. Try dividing larger pieces of information into smaller chunks so that people can digest it more easily.

–Make it easy to respond: Include a call-to-action in your email so that people know what you want them to do next. Make it easy for them by providing a link or offering a discount if they respond and purchase within a certain time frame.

By following these tips, you can email your audience in a way that will generate interest and sales without coming across as pushy.

Put together a special offer

In business, nothing happens until somebody sells something. If you’re not selling, you’re not in business. It sounds obvious, but a lot of businesses don’t actually do much selling. They provide products or services, but they don’t put together special offers and they don’t close the sale. If that sounds like your business, then it’s time to start thinking about selling.

The first step is to put together a special offer. This could be a discount on your products or services, or it could be a freebie that you give away to people who make a purchase. Whatever it is, make sure it’s something that will appeal to your target audience.

Once you’ve got your offer sorted, it’s time to start selling. This doesn’t mean going out and spamming everyone you know with sales pitches – that will just turn people off and make them less likely to buy from you in the future. Instead, focus on building relationships with potential customers and giving them value before you ask for the sale. For example, if you sell online courses, offer potential students a free mini-course so they can see what they would be getting if they sign up for one of your paid courses.

Selling doesn’t have to be difficult or sleazy – it can be fun and rewarding if you do it the right way. So go out there and start closing some deals!

Use paid advertising on a platform such as Facebook

As a business owner, it’s important to get comfortable with the idea of pausing your organic growth in order to invest in paid advertising that will jumpstart your sales. And there’s no shame in admitting that you need a little help getting your business off the ground.

When you use paid advertising on a platform such as Facebook, you have the ability to segment your audience so that you’re only targeting those who are most likely to convert. You can also create lookalike audiences of your best customers and target them with your ad campaigns.

In addition, you can use powerful visuals such as images and video to really capture attention and get your message across. And with Facebook’s new ad capabilities, you can even run ads directly in Messenger.

If you’re not comfortable asking for the sale, that’s ok – but know that you may be missing out on potential customers who are willing to buy from you if they just knew that you existed. So don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and invest in some paid advertising. It could be exactly what your business needs to take things to the next level.

Is a website audit for you?

Is a website audit for you?

by | 2 Sep 2022 | Website Building, Website Design, Websites

I’m glad to see you’ve pushed past the word “audit” – it’s not a particularly exciting word, and if you link it to “tax” it’s almost certain to strike dread into your heart.

However, when it comes to websites, a website audit is a very constructive exercise with potential for very positive outcomes. If your website is a few years old or you don’t feel it’s living up to expectations, then a website audit could well point out its strengths and weakness, and opportunities for improvement.

Naturally, your best option is to get a professional to cast an experienced eye over your website and pull together a report with recommendations that you can pick and choose whether to follow up. All the same, you can run your own mini-audit yourself to check a few things – keep reading 😀

A website audit can bring a few benefits;

  • Show up better in search engines – Ensure that your key pages are following the ‘rules’ that search engines like Google expect from a well-behaved webpage, and that the important details are being made available to search engines so that they can correctly list and rank your page(s). For example, does each page have a Title that is specific to the page content? So don’t have a title of “Welcome”!
  • Improve the user experience (”UX”) – Have your webpages been constructed with the visitor-reader in mind? Think about how people will actually use the website and its pages. Can they get to and back from pages quickly and easily? Can they find what they’re most likely looking for quickly and easily, eg. your contact details?
  • Boost performance – It’s important that you don’t make people wait more than a couple of seconds for a page and its elements to load, attention spans are very short these days. Measuring how fast a page loads and what is slowing it down identifies aspects that can improve a website's performance.
  • Pinpoint strengths – It’s not all about looking for what’s wrong! As a website owner, it’s good to know what IS working for your website so that you can build on that and be sure not to interfere with it.

Here’s a few things you can do now;

Speed test – While there are many items that contribute to a slow or a fast website, and the perceived speed will vary from day to day depending on a wide variety of conditions, it’s still good to have a feel for whether your site is ‘slow’ or not. A good rule of thumb is that if a webpage is taking more than 10 seconds to load, you have a problem and you are losing visitors because of it. Head over to pingdom.com to get a rating, and also to webpagetest.org. Run a test a few times over a few days to get an average.

Search engine ranking – Have you tried looking for your own products and services, or even your own organisation/business name? You’ll need to put yourself in the head of the person you’re expecting to look for your website – what words/phrases would they look for? What results does the search engine show and where do you appear in the list? Do your webpages even contain those words/phrases so they can be matched to a search?

Content review – It may be difficult to see the wood for the trees, but here again you are trying to see your website and its content (words & images) from the perspective of your visitors who may not be familiar with what you do. Are you explaining clearly without jargon? Are you guiding visitors on what to do next eg. fill in a form, phone, buy something, sign up to a newsletter? Ask friends, colleagues, customers/clients for their opinion, odds are you’ll get great suggestions. Be sure to keep your questions specific though, eg. could you easily find what you wanted?

If you’d like to poke into your website a bit more, be sure to get our free Website Success Guide with 6 key focus points for website success. It also comes with a short sequence of emails that build on what’s in the Guide. Check it out now.

Get the Website Success Guide (FREE)