A successful website does not happen overnight. It requires strategic planning and careful execution – and a name! So, what domain name should you choose? Like many things in life, “it depends”.

If your websites rely heavily on offline marketing, such as print advertising or word-of-mouth, then an easy to remember domain name could help you. People may try to guess your domain name, based on your location and/or what products or services you offer.

Choose an obvious name like MyService.com or MyFergusService.ca. Don’t make it too long, though: it should still fit on your business card! Buying a few variations on these names may be wise; you can point them all to your website.

Coming up with a strange name may also work for you, like FogDog.com or Woot.com – it worked for a company called Google…! Downside to a strange name, though, is that you have to work hard(er) to help people remembering it. Branding is important then.

If you plan to promote your website in the search engines, then a domain name containing important keyword phrases may be advisable – such as Mostimportantkeyword.com.

For more information: contact your webmaster, or email Nardo Kuitert at nardo@u-cwebs.com.

Published in The Business Eye, June 2006 – Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce.

For many people their website is their baby. And like every new parent, one of the first challenges when preparing for the arrival of their pride and joy, is coming up with a (domain) name for it…

The domain name is very important for your website. It is your online identity. Which does not mean that you are stuck with the name that you originally chose. Or, that you have to limit yourself to just one domain name.

Multiple domain names might just make perfect sense! But you have to know what you are doing, and why. Changing your main domain name is possible, but it could affect things like your rankings in the search engines. What you need is a solid domain name strategy.

If your website is yourname.com, you would not want competitors to own your-name.com, yourname.ca or anything like that. People may accidentally visit their website instead! So, think about your name, product, service, town. Consider different extensions, such as .com or .ca. Think about common misspellings. With and without hyphens. Domain name prices have come down dramatically, so they are a worthwhile (small) investment!

For more information: contact your webmaster, or email Nardo Kuitert at nardo@u-cwebs.com.

Published in The Business Eye, May 2006 – Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce

Many small businesses have small budgets, but that should not keep you from promoting your company on the web. Even on a budget you can do a lot. Here is a very basic and easy tip to get your website more exposure.

Your email address: many businesses forget this all-important promotional opportunity. If people do not know your website, they may try looking at your email address. Mine is nardo@u-cwebs.com, and people may guess my website is www.u-cwebs.com. And they are right. What a missed opportunity if I would have used nardo@sympatico.ca or even worse: nardo@hotmail.com!

(Don’t need to try them – they don’t work ;o)

Simple enough suggestion, right? But you will be surprised as to how many business cards mention an email address ending with rogers.com, wightman.ca, execulink.com… Take a look at the business cards you will receive at your next Business After Hours or Breakfast meeting, and you will know what I mean.
Of course you should not only use this email address on business cards, but also on your letterhead and in print ads, brochures, invitations and all other tools that you use to promote your business.

[Published in The Business Eye, April 2006 - Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce]

In this column Internet Consultant and Website Optimizer Nardo Kuitert will provide you with tips and tricks to make your website work better. Nothing fancy, nothing too difficult. Most is just common sense, really, but nevertheless often overlooked.

Having a good website can be very beneficial for your company or business. But what makes a website good? The answer is surprisingly simple: it should be easy to use. Less frustration and more satisfaction for your visitors will mean a better chance that you will see them again.

Therefore, look at your own website through the eyes of a user. What do you think is important when you visit a website? Ask a friend or colleague for some honest feedback or, even better, get an objective evaluation by a consultant. Is the contact information easy to find? Is the content easy to read? Do the pages download quickly enough? If you can answer these questions with “yes”, chances are that your visitors will also like what they see.

Of course there are more factors that contribute to a good website. However, making it a pleasurable experience for your visitors might be the most important one.

Published in The Business Eye, March 2006 – Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce.

We have experienced several new viruses this week. These viruses spread so rapidly that even small offices with day-old virus definitions have been infected. We’ve been keeping busy helping these customers cope.

There are two new and unique virus threats:

There is a new virus that is using a new trick to evade virus scanners. The Bagle.J worm transmits an infected file within a password protected zip file. It attaches it to an email instructing the recipient to open it. The necessary password is included in the instructions.

At this point virus scanners do not support scanning password protected zip files. So any file that requires a password has not been scanned and may potentially contain a virus.

There is also a new version of MyDoom that will delete Microsoft Office files. If one computer is infected it will start to delete all files on its own hard disk as well as any network shares it finds. This can be devastating to offices that rely on Microsoft documents.

We recommend the following:

1. Make sure all virus definitions are up to date on a daily basis. If you are a large organization (50+) consider updating more frequently.

2. Put email virus scanning in place. If you have a mail server put email scanning on it. If you collect email from an ISP ask about virus scanning services. Net Direct SAVant mail scanning software will work on Linux servers to filter virus emails and can use more than one virus scanner.

4. Be suspicious of any email purporting to have authority (e.g. from a “System administrator”, Microsoft Support, eBay, Postmaster, etc)

5. Consider putting in email filtering software that removes all executable and zip attachments. This will hamper your ability to transfer attachments using email but will prevent a costly infection. Net Direct SAVant mail scanner software can filter attachments by type and it is extensible so support for filtering password protected zip files requires only a little programming.

6. Review your backups and if possible perform a test restore to ensure that data can be backed up. Please feel free to call or email Net Direct for help.

7. Consider extending your backup cycle. Many small offices use a one-week rotation. Consider keeping weekly and monthly backups.

8. If you have an email server consider reconfiguring your firewall to block outgoing email traffic from all workstations. These viruses tend to circumvent your local mail server by sending directly to the Internet.

9. If a computer is infected disconnect it from the network immediately and consider shutting it down. This makes it difficult to update it but it will prevent a virus from deleting any files.

Other things to consider:

Ninety-nine percent of the viruses target computers with Microsoft software. This means that the fewer Microsoft products you use the fewer virus problems you will have.

There are some really good alternatives to Microsoft Software:

Open Office is a free drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office. Since it uses different file extensions than MS Office MyDoom will not delete its files.

Mozilla and Netscape are replacement web browsers that are considered by many to be much more advanced than Internet Explorer. A benefit of switching is a tremendous reduction in those annoying pop-ups.

Consider replacing Windows on your PC with Linux. The Linux desktop has matured to the point that governments around the world are installing Linux, by the thousands, instead of Windows. Net Direct is starting plans to deploy Linux desktops in our customer base.

Free online anti virus scans and spyware* detection:

Trend Micro – Free online virus Scan
from the makes of PC-cillin.
Symantec Security Check
from the makes of Norton Antivirus.
Ad-Aware Standard Edition
THE award winning, free, multicomponent detection and spyware removal utility.
Spybot – Search and Destroy
Can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer.

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