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Can you spot a phishing email?

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have been offline for all most two weeks because of a recent cyber-attack. Although they haven’t openly stated it was caused by Ransomware*, they are having to rebuild their complete system. This is consistent with how a company would react if they did not want to have to pay out to the criminals holding them to ransom. 

 

According to a report from the insurance broker Gallagher, 49% of local councils have been attacked since the start of 2017 and 37% were attacked in the first half of 2019 alone. Over that six-month period, local government experienced 263 million attacks

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5 ways to spot a malicious email

The majority of ransomware attacks begin with phishing scams, so simply knowing how to spot a malicious email will protect you from a substantial number of threats.

    • The message is sent from a public email domain
    • The domain name is misspelled
    • The email is poorly written
    • It includes suspicious attachments or links
    • The message creates a sense of urgency

 

The advice in the malicious email blog shows how important it is for individuals to be able to recognise signs of phishing.

Spam filters will never be fully effective, so it’s up to you to read the context of messages. Look for anything suspicious and report it.

Remember – it could be you and your business being held to ransom.

*Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts files and locks users out of the system. A message would then be sent informing users that to get access they have to pay a ransom.

You might also be interested in reading – blog/small-businesses-and-personal-data/

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Location

Shirley Atkinson

SAA IT Test Consultant

79120, Sainte Soline, France

SIRET – 835 373 515 00013

©2020 SAA-IT-Test.com

Contact

Need some help? Please contact us:

saa.it.testing@gmail.com

FR: +33 (0)7 83 16 61 11

UK: +44 (0)7940 435970

Hours

Mon: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Tue: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Wed: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Thu: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Fri: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Sat: Closed
Sun: Closed

 

Using Hashtags #SEO

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We have all seen hashtags on social media platforms and probably wondered what they do and why are there so many. Originally they were used to help filter and organise conversations on Twitter, but now they are present on several social media platforms. Most people find hashtags confusing because they’re not using in a sentence, just tagged on at the end. 

Hashtags are basically ‘keywords’, so they help you to categorise your content and help social media users to find it. Using hashtags in your social media posts will give you more opportunities to have your content in Google search results.

 

They’re particularly prevalent on Facebook (some might even say ‘annoying’), but also seen on Instagram, Twitter and even LinkedIn. But what are they and where can they be used for best effect? How many should I use? Does using hashtags improve my SEO and what can they do for my business?

Answers to all of these questions – and more! – can be found on ‘Social Media Today‘ but if you want a more concise read then I recommend you read ‘Blogging to help your small business‘. It’s informative, well written, and explains why using hashtags is an effective way to build your brand and launch new products and services.

Happy #hashtagging!

SAA I.T Test Consultant

 

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Content is King

High-quality content can help enhance your reputation and improve your ranking in search engines. And as we all know, being seen can bring in new customers. 

But your online image or reputation is only as good as your content because that’s how other people see you or your business. So to reduce the number of potentially negative opinions you need to improve your image.

A terrific SEO method that can present you as an expert in your field is content marketing. Unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as just writing a few paragraphs of content and publishing it now and again. You need to create a robust content marketing strategy and to do this you have to apply the following measures. 

 

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“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action..” (Contentmarketinginstitute.com)

Content Marketing Strategy

Research shows that the vast majority of marketers are using content marketing. It’s developed and implemented by leading organisations, small businesses and single-person enterprises the world over. This is because it builds customer loyalty, cuts costs and increases sales. 

 

01

Identify your audience

Who are you targeting your content for? What age range are your customers? Any specific professions or background? Local or international locations? Defining your audience will help you tailor your content and when is the best time to post it.

02

Check out the competition

Follow your competitors. What are they writing about? Keep up to date with what they are doing

03

Keyword research

Great content takes times and effort. Conduct keyword research to see what topics are trending in your business area or industry in order to base your content around them

04

Distribution

Determine what you are going to post and where you are going to be posting – blogs, videos, podcasts, emails, social media platforms. But remember, your content marketing strategy must come before your social media strategy!

05

Tell your brand story

Telling your story will help build a strong relationship with your customers. Let them know who they are dealing with, what you are passionate about. They will identify with your brand and reward you with their loyalty.

06

Create your content

Now you know who you are targeting, what is trending and your distribution channel you can start creating your content. Share it. Promote it.

07

Conversation

Once you have published your content you need to listen to what people are saying about. Set up communities or groups on social media. Respond to comments and monitor the feedback so you can review and update your content further down the line.

Location

Shirley Atkinson

SAA IT Test Consultant

79120, Sainte Soline, France

SIRET – 835 373 515 00013

©2020 SAA-IT-Test.com

Contact

Need some help? Please contact us:

saa.it.testing@gmail.com

FR: +33 (0)7 83 16 61 11

UK: +44 (0)7940 435970

Hours

Mon: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Tue: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Wed: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Thu: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Fri: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Sat: Closed
Sun: Closed

User Testing Experience

From 1982 until 1997 I worked for the civil service in local benefit office on the North Wales coast and also on a 2 year secondment to the Regional Implementation Team based in Cardiff, for the roll out of the Income Support system.

In 1997, still working for the civil service, I took on my first testing role with DWP at their I.T. headquarters in Lancashire initially testing enhancements to the Income Support benefit system, but I also worked on the test teams for Social Fund, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Child Support. I left the civil service in 2000 and joined an I.T company in Manchester as a Test Consultant, I also worked briefly for EDS (now Hewlett Packard) and eventually set up my own Test Consultancy business in 2001.

Just a few of the companies I have worked for: 

BT – Home Office – DWP – GE – HSBC – AutoTrader – e-VMT – BJSS – IBM (Curam) – HSBC

Until we moved permanently to France in 2017 I worked across the full complement of testing phases throughout the complete end-to-end testing life-cycle including : integration, functional, non-functional, regression, performance and user testing. Now my focus is User Testing and putting my testing experience and attention to detail to good use, helping business owners create a great customer experience and improve their business online presence. 

I always ask my clients to provide feedback, because if they are not satisfied with the services I have provided then I make every possible effort to improve them.

My aim is to help you improve the quality of your customer’s experience and increase the visibility of your business by providing expert advice and offering a range of affordable solutions and services.

Feel free to read some of these reviews on my Facebook Business page, LinkedIn profile  orGoogle My Business!

TESTIMONIALS

Location

Shirley Atkinson

SAA IT Test Consultant

79120, Sainte Soline, France

SIRET – 835 373 515 00013

©2020 SAA-IT-Test.com

Contact

Need additional assistance? Please contact us:

saa.it.testing@gmail.com

FR: +33 (0)7 83 16 61 11

UK: +44 (0)7940 435970

Hours

Mon: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Tue: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Wed: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Thu: 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Fri: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Sat: Closed
Sun: Closed

SAA IT TESTING

Dedicated to Quality

“Our aim is to help you improve the quality of your customer’s experience and increase the visibility of your business by providing expert advice and offering a range of affordable solutions and services”.

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