Cloud Computing Security: How the Cloud keeps your Data Secure

It’s your critical business data, secure It.
The most important part of a computer isn’t the processor or RAM, it’s the data.
Pictures, email, documents, records, files, passwords, it’s all data. Keeping it safe is paramount in today’s world.
For data security, it’s hard to beat the cloud.
What Is The Cloud?
In simple terms, the cloud consists of computer servers maintained by an entity or company with an Internet connection in a secure location. With massive and multiple hard drives, they store and provide access to data.
For anyone with an Internet connection (via home Internet or cellular service), there is access to that data. For example, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Dropbox.
Advantages of Cloud Computing
Most people don’t like keeping their own “things” in someone else’s location. Data is no different. Who wants someone else holding their data? But there are advantages to using a cloud server for data, especially essential data.
Professional Management of Your Data
For those not in the field of IT, it’s doubtful that we employ best practices for data safekeeping. Most of the data on our computers is stored in files without encryption and in directories easily located. Access to our computers is access to just about everything about us, including bank accounts, online accounts, friends, and relatives. It makes sense to put precious data in the hands of companies dedicated explicitly to securing it.
Constant, Secure Backup Off Premises
Most people don’t think about data backup, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods do happen, and after a disaster has occurred is the wrong time to think about disaster recovery of your valuable data.
Cloud-stored data is not just “out there;” it’s securely stored and backed up consistently.
Redundancy Means Reliability
Cloud storage is more than a single server. Most individuals, and even small businesses, store data in one location. Not the cloud.
A cloud service using best practices stores redundant data in at least two locations so that even if one location is inaccessible for some reason, your data is still safe.
Failure is Not an Option — It’s Inevitable
According to a 2013 article showing some extensive testing, 1 in 5 hard drives will fail within three years, and 1 out of 2 will fail within five years.
Randomly, there is a 1 in 8 chance that your hard drive will fail. That means anything you store locally is more likely to be lost within five years than not. Again, after the disaster occurs is no time to start worrying about data backup.
Spyware, Viruses, and Ransomware, Oh My!
For large companies (like Equifax, Target, Home Depot, etc.), hacking is the primary threat to data. For the rest of us, malware is our most significant threat, and especially ransomware as it threatens to lock or delete our data.
There are many methods for preventing ransomware, but the only failsafe way to preventing threats to your data is to have your data beyond threat.
A data backup, away from an infected computer, means that even if your computer gets infected, your data is safe and can be recovered. Threat neutralized.
Your Own DaVinci Code
During World War II the Nazis used the “Enigma machine” to send coded messages. Cloud data storage has its enigma machine for data, encryption.
Your connection to cloud data is only sent over secure connections using, in most cases, 128-bit or 256-bit encryption. How secure is that? A secure password using 128-bit, it would take more than 1 billion years to crack, even for a government agency. Next, to the PIN or weak password on a local computer, the difference in security is immeasurable.
Make it Rain! Or Maybe Just “Cloud”y
Moving data to the cloud is often a simple process, but it comes with a lot of considerations. Among those factors is choosing the provider. However, there are many more that you need to pay attention to as well.
Choosing Data
What data do you want in the cloud? Files, folders, or maybe even an entire image of the computer (files and operating system) can be backed up. And consider space too.
Pictures, video, data, and audio files can reach gigabytes of data in a hurry. If there is a business at stake as well, all of those files need to be securely stored in the cloud. Disaster recovery for business, no matter the size, is no small matter.
Cloud Pricing
Depending on what you send to the cloud, there may be a cost associated with it.
Free services are for personal use, not large companies. Often only offer limited space (under 20GB), which may hold your most essential files, but it certainly won’t hold everything. The cost will increase the more you store and if you want several versions of it.
Don’t sell yourself short to save a buck. Multiple backups (for file recovery) are worth it with a data center that specializes in cloud backup solutions.
To the Cloud…and Back
Don’t forget your speed. Sending 300 gigabytes of data to the cloud, and retrieving it, can take a long time. Continual updates are also something to keep in mind.
Cloud backup needs a fast, reliable connection. You never know when you’re going to need what you have or are sending to the cloud, so eliminating risk must be part of your consideration.
It’s About the Security of Your Data
If your data is important at all, it needs to be secure.
Computer theft, computer failures, malware, natural disasters, and other problems make local data storage a risky business.
The cloud is, by far, the more reliable and secure data storage location for what matters to you most, your data.
Not sure where to start? Give GCInfotech a call to discuss the available solutions that would work best for your company. Together, we can make your business work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

Published with consideration from SMB Nation SOURCE

/by

What to do and not do when managing an ongoing AdWords campaign

If you’re a small business looking to invest in web-based advertising, Google AdWords is the best place to start. Some campaigns can be set up in as little as five minutes.

However, for competitive industries with high value sales such as IT consulting, we typically recommend a minimum starting budget of $1,000/month. Yes, this is not for the faint of heart. This does require that you’re a financially sound business in stage four or five of the small business success model and that you can earn sufficient ROI from one sale or lifetime value of bringing on a new customer on board.

Or if you’re a fitness club selling CrossFit classes in a major US metro area, you may still face significant AdWords competition, but at a much lower starting rate — perhaps a $500-$750/month budget would be enough. (To learn more about how to budget for Google Adwords, here’s a great post about it by one of the vendors we use.)

Considering just how powerful this tool can be for your lead generation efforts, and how much traffic it can generate for your website — that’s not something you can ignore. When properly optimized and matched to your target audience, AdWords creates a steady stream of new leads and potential customers, but it can also be a black hole for your marketing budget when managed improperly.

Google makes it easy to spend money, but to do it successfully, regular time must be spent managing your campaigns. That means daily checks of keyword performance for the first couple of weeks and weekly or bi-weekly checks after this to ensure your campaigns are performing as expected.

When checking your keyword list, there are several factors you should evaluate:

  •  Keyword Relevance – Relevant keywords represent the specific phrases your prospects are searching for when they need what you offer. This usually means 3-5 words that mention your services, location, and possibly a specific problem you might solve. At the same time, when someone clicks a highly relevant keyword, where do they go on your website? Does your landing page contain those keywords? Is it relevant to the search they just made?
  • Match Types – With AdWords, you can set Exact Match to show only your ads when users type the phrases you’ve listed, word for word. Using this is more targeted, but at the risk of limiting visibility. Phrase Match tells Google that you want those words to appear in the exact order that you’ve listed but Google can add things before and after that. Broad Match displays your ads for the phrase you’ve listed, but can also add words onto that phrase or trigger your ad for synonyms or near variations.
  • Quality Score – Each of your keywords will be assigned a quality score. This is based on several factors, including the click-through rate of people who see your ads when searching for that term, the relevance of your landing page when they get there, and how long they stay. This can influence what you pay for each keyword, but can also send a signal that your campaign needs adjustment.
  • Cost Per Click – What are you paying for each click? It’s easy to look at high level statistics for your campaign and see a good conversion rate and ignore the fine details. But if you’re paying $3.50 per click for a keyword that converts at a rate lower than another that costs only $1.25 per click, you could be missing out on potential conversions.
  • Negative Keywords – There is a lot of irrelevant traffic out there. For anything other than exact-match campaigns, you should include negative keywords to keep your ads from being displayed in search results that don’t match your services. For example, if you have a campaign “server setup support,” you might exclude the word “videogames” if that’s not a clientbase you want to reach.

The number of options available in AdWords when you dig into the settings can be overwhelming, but if you focus on the items above and check in once a week, you can streamline your spending and optimize results over time.

With the right combination of time invested and careful addition of new keywords, you can ensure you get the best out of your AdWords campaign.

Ask yourself what your website is doing for you and whether it’s aligned with your business needs and objectives. The GCInfotech professional web design team is here to help.

Published with consideration from Pronto Marketing SOURCE

/by