What is SEO
What is SEO
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of making your website more search engine ‘friendly’ with the likes of Google . It’s a cheaper way of getting your website listed for your product when a user searches for it on the internet. Asking other webmasters for reciprocal linking is a great way to get links as a part of a link building process
An SEO can optimise the keywords and phrases within your site to increase the likelyhood of it being found by potential customers searching for your product or service.
Getting your business to the top of Google is the most cost effective way to generate business to your website.
SEO is a way of driving more traffic to your website without the need to constantly pay the search engines to promote your website. If you’re happy to pay the search engines to promote your website then you can use a process called Pay Per Click or PPC for short. Whilst PPC is an effective short term form of SEO you probably do not want to be continually paying the search engines everytime someone clicks on your website.
So many of us have websites these days, whether they be personal sites or for business use but if they’re not optimised for the search engines you could be losing sales.
People don’t generally search further than page 1 of Google (or any other search engine) when they’re searching so you could lose out if they don’t get to see your website.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques are used to look at the structure of a website to see how it can be improved. It could be that it’s a lovely looking website with lot of pretty pictures but search engines can’t read pictures, they only deal with text and they like to see a fair amount so they they can figure out what exactly your website is all about.
Most people use Google when searching these days so wouldn’t it be great if they found your website. Getting found more easily has the potential to greatly increase on-line sales by driving customers towards you and the products that you sell. That’s why getting found on the search engines is so important.
Link Building Service
Getting other websites to link to yours is an effictive way of boosting your position withing the search engines. Start off by asking any friends and family members who own websites to link to yours.
You can also very often get links from the various internet forums. You can often add a link into your signature that will show up when you post on a thread but make sure that doing do doesn’t break any terms and conditions of the forum first.
HMRC Tax refund email
HMRC Tax Refund Notification Email – Phishing Scam
Some of you may be receiving what appears to be an email from HMRC letting you know that you are eligible to receive a tax refund.
This email says that it comes from HM Revenue & Customs and
the email address is tax.refunds@hmrc.co.uk
It’s title is: Tax Refund Notification !
The fake HMRC email is obviously a phishing scam and reads:
After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 973.90 GBP. Please submit the tax refund request and alloW us 5-7 days in order to process it.
Please download the document attached to this email to confirm your identity.
Note: You will need to provide a valid bank accoun in which the funds will be payed to. A refund can be delayed for some reasons, for example submitting invalid records or applying after deadline.
Best Regards,
HM Revenue & Customs.
Note the spelling mistake in the word ‘account’ and ‘allow’
This phishing email comes with an HTML form attached which you are asked to fill in. The form asks for the following personal details from you:
CardHolder Name
Date of Birth
Mother Maiden Name
Address
Town/City
Province/Region
Postal Code
Phone Number
Credit Card Information – Please enter your Credit or Debit Card where refunds will be made.
Bank Name
Debit / Credit Card Number
Expiration Date
Card Verification Number
and finally – Password
Despite the poor grammar and spelling, some might possibly be fooled by this email and release their personal banking details. If they do, there are enough answers to probable security questions (Note the Q about your Mother’s maiden name) that would allow the criminals take take a good stab at buying goods or removing money from your bank account.
Stay safe online and don’t fall for phishing scams.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will never send notifications of a tax rebate by email, or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email.
A selection of fake email addresses used to distribute the tax rebate emails can be seen below:
- services@hmrc.co.uk
- refunds@hmrc.gov.uk
- customs@hmrc.gov.uk
- srvcs@hmrc.gov.uk
- message@tax.co.uk
- alertsonline@hmrc.co.uk
- info@hmrc.gov.uk
- noreply@hmrc.gov.uk
- securemail@hmrc.co.uk
- rebate@hmrc.gov.uk
- info.hmrc@direct.gov.uk
- payment@hmrc.gov.uk
HMRC do not send emails using these email addresses.
How to report HMRC related phishing/bogus emails
If you have received a HMRC related phishing/bogus email, please forward it to the following email address and then delete it.
What you should do if you have disclosed personal details
You should never disclose your personal and/or payment information in reply to an email that may look like it’s from HMRC, you may well be revealing your details to a fraudulent website.
However, if you have already given any of your personal information, for example your HMRC User ID, password or National Insurance number, in reply to a suspect email please forward brief details to the email address below.
security.custcon@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
Please do not disclose any of your personal details or information in the email report to HMRC. However it would help them to investigate if you would tell them the type(s) of information that you disclosed to the suspect website. For example – I gave my name, address, date of birth, bank card details, HMRC User ID etc.
HMRC will act upon all HMRC related phishing emails, removing reported fraudulent websites.
Becoming a Sole Trader
Becoming a Sole Trader
In these tough economic times, with companies going bust and every increasing unemployment, some people are looking for alternative ways to raise money to pay their bills.
Becoming a sole trader is the simplest way to run a small business. If you have skills and experience to offer then why not consider registering as a sole trader and becoming self employed.
If you have tradesperson skills such as an electrician or plumber then it would pay to do some research on the internet to see how many traders with these skills advertising in your area
It does not involve paying any registration fees, keeping accounts is straightforward, and you get to keep all the profits.
However, you are personally liable for any debts that your business runs up, which make this a risky option for businesses that need a lot of financial investment.
You make all the decisions on how to manage your business. You are responsible for raising money for the business out of your own assets and/or with a loan from your banks or building society.
You must keep records showing your business income and expenses your profits are taxed as income.
you also need to register for Self Assessment with HMRC and complete a tax return each year.
As a sole trader, you are personally responsible for any debts run up by your business. This means that your home may be at risk if your business runs into financial difficulties.
Santander Online Banking – Phishing scam email – incorrect login attempts
Santander Online Banking Email
I’ve received quite a few emails of late that claim to be from Santander online banking.
The email address that appears on the email is:
notice@santander.co.uk
The email title is:
Santander Bank – Warning Message
or
Incorrect login attempts
and goes on to read:
Dear Santander Bank Customer ,
Hello dear member,
Your account is suspended due to the number of incorrect login attempts.
For your protection, we’ve suspended your account . To reactivate your account
please download the document attached to this email to review your account activity.
If not completed until January 13, we will be forced to close your account .
When you look at the document it asks for Identity Varification and asks for the following
Personal ID or Card number:
Passcode:
Registration Number:
Mobile Phone Number:
Mothers middle name:
Last school attended:
Place of birth:
Debit Card Number:
Debit Card Exp Date:
Card Verification Code(Cvv):
Full Address:
Date of Birth (dd/mm/yy):
If you do fill in these details and and press the submit button you are very likely to be giving the scammers an early Christmas present !
“Why?” you might ask – Well armed with those personal details, they could very easily pretend to be you and set up all sorts of credit accounts in your name and spend a fortune… It is a total scam
Santander will never send you an email asking to confirm security questions or update your information.
When you receive such an email, this is an attempted fraud. This is known as PHISHING (pronounced fishing) as a fraudster is ?fishing? for your security details, to try and log into your account to steal money.
On their website, Santander give the following advice
“If you have received a scam email, DO NOT click on any links or pictures, or open any attachments. Instead, please forward it to phishing@santander.co.uk and help us reduce online fraud.”
metropolitan police virus – trojan.zbot.cbcgen Ukash scam
Metropolitan Police Virus – Ukash Scam # Update
This is what you will see if your computer is infected.
Under the laws of the United Kingdom and investigation of Metropolitan Police Service and Strathclyde Police Your computer is locked to prevent illegal activity in the network.
I’d almost forgotton about this nasty trojan infection known as trojan.zbot.cbcgen asking you to to send ukash money because it’s a scam.
It also mentions this email address :
surcharge@cyber-metropolitan-police.co.uk
The domain of which is registered in Poland
A few days ago I had a frantic call from a customer saying that their computer was displaying a screen claiming that they had been watching porn on their computer and that they have to pay a fine to the Metropolitan Police Force.
I understand that there are 2 variants of this pop-up message, the other one claims to be from Strathclyde Police.
It turned out the the customer’s computer had picked up a nasty little trojan called trojan.zbot.cbcgen and it had effectively disabled their copy of Norton Internet security and also stopped them getting online to the internet.
They had actually taken their computer to the police and the police suggested that they use an excellent piece of software from the great folks at www.malwarebytes.org .The customer decided that it was too complicated for them to remove this trojan themselves so they asked me to do it for them.
Trojan Removal - trojan.zbot.cbcgen removal – Metropolitan Police Virus Removal
One way to clear this trojan would have been to remove the hard drive, put in in a sata hard drive caddy and clear it with a different machine.
In this instance, I managed to get the laptop, which was running the microsoft windows XP operating system, to start up in safe mode with networking by pressing F8 just after starting the thing up.
I then used a small process killer called Rkill, installed Malwarebytes and did a complete scan. This highlighted the trojan infection and i was able to remove it.
After cleaning, the laptop restarted properly.
The corrupted Norton Antivirus was removed and an alternative anti-virus program was installed and updated.
If you wish to remove a trojan yourself and you know what it’s called, it’s always a good idea to do an online search for details of the removal of that particular trojan or virus as procedures can vary.
Despite being distasteful, i wasn’t aware that viewing adult pornography was actually ilegal.
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Windows phone scam india call centre
I had a call about a windows phone scam last night.
The customer had a call from a man claiming to work for Microsoft. The man who had an indian accent said that he had had a call from the customer’s ISP (Internet Service Provider) about serious problems coming from their computer.
The indian sounding man then went on to ask the customer to open a program called the “windows event viewer”. Now, to the average computer user the contents of the event viewer can look to be rather worrying especially when the see the words ‘error’ and ‘warning.
Having seen some of the error messages the customer was convinced that they did indeed have a problem. The customer asked the indian man whether these error messages were the problem?.
“Yes, that’s it,” says the man. “Now let me guide you through the steps to fixing it.”
The customer was then directed to a website and told to download a a piece of software (a program) and install it. The customer is the directed to enter a six-digit code that allows the indian man to gain remote control of the computer, and the man proceeds to installs various “fixes” for the problem.
And now the time comes to pay pay a fee: £175 for a “subscription” to prevent the problem occuring again, a kind of preventative service .
The problem is that there was never anything wrong with the computer. The indian sounding man did not work for Microsoft or the internet service provider. What had happened was that the customer had given a complete strange access to every file, document and picture on her computer including folders containing ‘private and sensitive information’ !.
This customer is elderly and in-experienced, she was convinced by the authority of the man and very worried about the contents of the Windows Event Viewer. In actual fact, all computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system will show up these “errors” even though there is nothing wrong with the computer.
Another worrying point is that the indian call centre now have the lady’s bank details and if payment was made with a ban debit card there is little chance that the bank will reverse the payment for the customer to get her money back.
Please be careful with the windows phone scam because Microsoft will never make an unsolicited phone call to you.
Website not showing up on Google
Website not showing up on Google
Do you have a website that is not showing up on the Google search engine?.
If it’s a new website then it may just be that Google has not indexed it just yet.
It does take time for search engines to index websites but sometimes it depends on how well, if at all, a website has been optimised for the search engines.
Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO as it is usually known is the process or ‘art’ of optimising the content and standing of a website.
As far as on-page optimisation is concerned, an SEO will look at the source code of the website to see whether the correct wording has been used in the title for your website’s given use.
If you are a plumber in Portsmouth then the SEO will make sure that these 2 key words along with any other relevant keywords are included.
Some webdesign packages leave the default title as Home or Home Page which is of no use to man nor beast if you’re a plumber from Portsmouth.
An SEO will also look at a couple of meta tags, the most important one being the meta description tag. This tag tells web users something about the website that they may well be about to click. It should contain the necessary keywords that best describe your business and can also be considered a ‘call to action’ by making the website within look interesting to them.
The content of your website is obviously extremely important and needs to tell Google that it really all is about your services as a plumber in Portsmouth.
Those 2 keywords atleast should be contained within the header in what is known as H1 text if your website contains text in it’s header.
The keywords should also, ideally, crop up in the forst paragraph of the mein content section and a few more time without over doing it.
Under construction… As usual 
Wireless network security – keep out the wi-fi hackers
Wireless network security
Wireless broadband allows you to get on to the internet from anywhere in your home without having to run cables around the house. This means that the whole family can get online at the same time .
Before you start surfing the internet in your back garden, you need to think about internet security and make sure that your wireless network is safe and secure.
When setting up a wireless network in your home, the broadband signal is sent out from your wireless router, it is no longer necessary to physically connect your computer to your router using a cable, commonly called an ethernet cable.
When this is done your network is no longer restricted by the walls of your home. While this is very convenient for you, it can create a security issue if your wireless internet connection is not secured.
If your wireless network is not secured, then you will need to set up passwords to encrypt data being sent between your wireless router and your computer or laptop.
If you use a wireless connection that is not protected by password protection you are at risk from:
Wireless Eavesdroppers
Computer or laptop users in the close vacinity can intercept the information that you send and possibly decode any banking information that you exchange with a banking website. Using an encrypted connection makes this a lot less likely to happen.
Unauthorised use
This is where a neighbour, or even someone sat outside in a car, can gain access to the internet without your knowledge using your wireless network. This is especially dangerous for the following reason: If this person were to access an internet website and download illegal or banned pornography , the police might trace where this was happening and it would be your door that they knocked at 3am so think of this as an important internet security issue
Hopefully these reasons will make you decide to check whether your wireless router is using password protected encryption. If you’ve never been asked for a password when you’ve connected to a wireless network for the first time then it is not encrypted and you need to take action now.
Wireless Hackers
anyone within range can connect to the wireless network and can potentially connect to your computer. Using an encrypted connection makes this a lot less likely to happen.
How to set up a wireless broadband router
How to set up a wireless router
Before buying a wireless router to connect to your computer you need to make sure that your computer has the necessary connection of the back as this can be a problem on some older computers. You need to make sure that it’s fitted with an ethernet or LAN (local area network) port as shown in the photo below.
If your computer does not have an ethernet port then it’s possible to buy and fit an ethernet card and fit it to one of the spare PCI slots in the bottom of the computer.
Once you have established that you have an ethernet port you can plug one end of the ethernet cable into the port and the other end into the port at the rear of the wireless router. There are usually 4 ports provided to allow for other computers to be plugged in.
Ethernet port - Click to enlarge
The wireless router it will usually come with an installation CD which you would insert into your computer to allow you to fill out your broadband connection details to allow the router to connect to the internet.
This can sometimes problems so it is often better to log in to the router directly.
The way to log in to your router is to find the IP (internet protocol) address from the documentation supplied and type it in the the address bar of your internet browser ie Internet Explores or Mozilla Firefox.
Your router’s IP address is a series of numbers seperated with dots and in the case of a Netgear router it is 192.168.0.1 Once you press enter you’ll be asked to enter a user name and password. With a netgear router they are admin for the username and password for the password !.
Once logged in you’ll see a menu looking very similar to this:As you can see from the screen shot taken from a Netgear Wireless-N 150 ADSL2 Modem Router DGN1000
wireless router main menu
Now that you’re logged on you can either use the setup wizard or click on the basic settings menu and enter your the broadband details as supplied by your internet service provider (ISP).
Once you have set up the wired side of your router to may want to set up the wireless side so that you can access the internet from a laptop.
To do so, click on the wireless settings on the router main menu, you will then see the following menu:
As you can see in the example above the wireless encryption is currently disabled. In the following example we will change the wireless security setting to:
WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)
In the above example we have set the network key as newnetworkkey although you should use a password of 8-63 characters long that contains letters, numbers and symbols and preferably, not use a word or phrase that could be easily guessed by a potential hacker.
N.B. If you have received a BT Home Hub from BT Internet then you can skip the section about logging on to your router because they are setup in advance by BT Internet for broadband use.
If you have bought a computer with Microsoft Windows 7 but are still using one of the older broadband modems that plug into a USB port on your computer then you will need to buy a wireless router as the older modems are not supported by Microsoft Windows 7.
