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February
2009
What Lies Behind
– Making Use Of Your
Website's Customer Information Gathering
Capability
Hard Times Increase The
Likelihood Of Theft By Employees
Keep Your PC At Peak
Performance – Managing
Your Computer
10 Ways To Trim Your IT
Budget
 
What Lies Behind –
Making Use Of Your Website's Customer
Information Gathering Capability
Websites are pretty much a prerequisite for
marketing a business these days but are the
dollars you are investing in it delivering
enough sales to make it a worthwhile investment?
Is it bringing new visitors? Are they buying?
Could it be performing better? It can be hard
figuring out just how successful your site is.
To begin to answer these questions you need to
take an in-depth look at what visitors are doing
on your website - you need web analytics. What
web analytics can tell you – and why you need to
know.
Web analytics is the study of visitor’s behavior
on a website. Marketers can learn a lot by
utilizing web analytics. Here is a list of the
main reasons why any business with a website
should be using the analytic data it is capable
of gathering:
Identify and invest in the best lead sources:
Three analytics in particular are worth tracking
for this purpose: direct traffic, referring
sites, and the keywords people are using to
search for your site.
Direct traffic refers to visitors who have
either typed the business’ web address or name
directly into their browser or clicked on a
bookmark. The percentage of direct traffic you
receive is an indicator of how well your brand
is known. If few of your visitors come direct it
may be time to increase marketing of your
products to make them more familiar and to
promote your website more widely.
Referring sites are those that have a link to
you on their pages. Link analytics will tell you
how many visitors came to you from each source
plus the quality of the lead – whether visitors
from one source were more likely to buy than
those from another. If only a few websites are
sending you good traffic, you probably want to
build up a good relationship with those sites
and extend link partnering relationships to
similar sites. If they are ad placement sites
you pay for, then you’ll know which ones to
spend with and which ones to drop – they may be
sending you a lot of traffic but if it’s not
converting there’s no point in paying for their
service.
You can track which keywords visitors have used
in search engines looking for your site. Cross
reference this data with conversion rates and
you have the information to tweak your marketing
text and keywords for search engine optimization
and attracting the most likely prospects.
Analyzing referring keywords and conversion
rates is especially important when running paid
ad campaigns. Why pay for clicks that don't
convert?
Conversely if you’re getting a lot of search
engine traffic on particular terms that you
don’t necessarily want to show up for, maybe
because they are peripheral or irrelevant to
your business and the visitors just click away
again anyway, you might want to spend some time
on de-emphasizing them in your content and
marketing.
Track campaign channel effectiveness and buying
patterns:
How successful was your last email marketing
campaign? Could you determine if a particular
sale came from your initial email or from a
follow up? Did the second follow up bring in any
business at all? If you track each campaign
using the web analytics data they generate you
can establish answers to questions like these
and plan future campaigns more precisely.
If you take a look at the analytics on sales by
day of the month - you can even drill down to
times during a day - you’ll know when to launch
a new product, promotion or project. You want to
launch before traffic peaks so the information
is seen by the most visitors.
Identify under performing web pages:
In the world of online marketing many site
visitors are likely to leave again immediately
after landing. That’s a bounce – an exit by a
new visitor before going any deeper than the
page they landed on. Bounce rate is an
indication of how well a web page is delivering
its marketing message in terms of how long
people stay on it and if they perform the
desired action e.g. go on to make a purchase. If
you're selling pool salt and, even though people
are finding you using those words, they still
bounce away, then it suggests there is something
wrong - the content isn't very good, you're
attracting the wrong audience, or your customers
couldn't quickly and easily find what they were
looking for. Establish the reason and tweak the
text, the navigation or whatever so it does hold
them.
Web analytics is another area where the saying
‘what you can measure you can manage’ holds true
and the better the information you have about
your website, the better the decisions you can
make to get the most sales out of it.
To Top 
Hard Times Increase The Likelihood Of Theft
By Employees
It’s not a pleasant thought but harder times
mean some employees will be looking for ways
they can cut down their expenditure and one that
they may resort to is pilfering business assets.
We aren’t talking the odd roll of toilet paper
from the washroom here.
Some real life cases on report include an
employee responsible for utility bill payments
who set aside a few hundred dollars each payment
to cover her home electric bill; one who wrote
his family vehicles into the company’s vehicle
insurance plan; and another who stole thousands
of dollars of tools from a job site to sell
later. Even highly trusted and proficient
employees have been known to crack under
financial strain and resort to stealing from
their workplace. In the US, a 2008 FBI report
labels employee theft ‘the fastest growing crime
in America!’, a story beginning to be emulated
in other countries as their economy worsens.
Processes and routines that remove temptation
and opportunity – or internal controls as
accountants refer to them – have been identified
as the most effective way of deterring internal
theft, or limiting the amount that can be lost
before the problem is recognized, to the bare
minimum. The knowledge that someone is looking
at the details in your business keeps honest
people that way and prevents dishonest people
from even thinking about it.
Here are some of the major internal controls you
can apply to prevent suffering from theft by
your employees.
- Conduct regular physical inventories.
Reconcile sales to inventory on a quarterly
basis, or at least annually. Use a third party
to carry out inventories.
-
Keep track of equipment.
Keep an asset register of business property and
inventory it annually. Require workers to sign
out company tools before taking them to job
sites. Lock doors to storage and supply rooms to
limit access to authorized personnel. Keep an up-to-date
register of keys issued and ensure terminating
employees return those in their possession.
-
Control petty cash transactions.
Designate those who can access the petty cash
reserve. Keep it to a couple of people. Require
a signed receipt for all petty cash
disbursements and receipts of payment. Regularly
reconcile the petty cash fund.
-
Keep control of credit cards.
Limit and track the use of any business credit
cards. Require all credit cards to be signed out
and all credit card expenses to be authenticated
by a purchase order.
-
Segregate financial duties.
Don’t let the same person who processes checks
also reconcile the checkbook or manage the
accounts receivable. Limit the number of people
who can sign checks. Keep blank checks under
lock and key. Do not use a signature stamp. Have
one person open the mail and record checks and
another person make the bank deposit.
-
Safeguard financial data.
If you are using a computerized accounting
application make sure it doesn’t allow entries
to be changed - it should only allow offsetting
or correcting entries, and should provide a
report on what entries have been altered. Use
passwords to limit access to authorized
employees.
-
Control purchasing, receiving and paying
functions.
To maintain a system of checks and balances
assign responsibility for different tasks in the
order/receive/pay chain to different employees.
Spot-check receiving and shipping functions to
ensure that what's invoiced is equal to what's
received or actually going out. Use numbered
sales receipts, invoices and register receipts.
-
Personally review monthly bank statements.
Have the bank statement sent to your home rather
than the business and review it yourself before
passing it on to your bookkeeper. Look for
checks payable to employees or to payees you
don’t recognize, signatures that don’t look
right, returned checks and suspicious credit
card charges. Ask your bookkeeper to explain
them so employees are aware you keep your eye on
things.
One of the best things you can do is provide a
good example yourself. As a role model for your
employees, if they see you padding your expense
account or walking out with work stationery and
other equipment it will only license them to do
the same thing.
Implementing procedures like these is a good
start to preventing theft but it’s possible to
plug the holes tighter still. For instance,
there are a whole set of activities just around
handling the cash register tray that are
straightforward to implement and will protect
your hard earned sales cash. For advice on how
you can improve your internal controls talk to
your accountant. For ideas on how to prevent
physical theft contact your local police, they
will provide both documentation and advice on
methods for preventing and dealing with theft.
To Top
Keep Your PC At Peak Performance
– Managing Your
Computer
Tidy The Registry (not DIY unless you are a computer expert)
The computer’s registry acts like a huge
database that holds the complete inventory and
location of every file, folder, program and
process that resides on it. This information is
used to tell programs how to run and to locate
the files needed to perform particular tasks. As
files or programs are added to or removed from
your PC the registry is modified to reflect
these changes. Over time the registry becomes
larger, the data more fragmented and can end up
including errors, conflicting settings and
leftover items like broken shortcuts. These
diminish the performance of the computer.
PCs have a built-in utility to repair and
maintain the registry manually. But it is an
extremely complex task, certainly no job for the
untrained. Delete the wrong thing and you will
lose critical data and personal information, or
maybe end up with a computer that doesn't work
at all. You can purchase a registry scanner
utility that will include safety net features
but even they are not foolproof. Fortunately,
the good ones come with an Undo function so you
can put back what they remove. Still, it’s a job
best left to the expert.
Increase Virtual Memory (DIY safe)
Virtual memory is the disk space your computer
will start to use when it's short of RAM (Random
Access Memory). But disks are slower than RAM so
operations take longer. Worse, if the computer
runs low on virtual memory your computer will
freeze or crash.
Resetting the virtual memory usage on your
computer through the built in utility can speed
up the computer but DO NOT exceed the limit
suggested in the properties box of your Windows
system.
Shutdown Correctly (DIY safe)
Your computer performs a number of maintenance
functions during the shutdown process. If this
process isn’t carried out correctly files meant
to be eliminated will be left in the cache,
configuration information can be lost and
programs, or even the operating system itself,
corrupted. The cumulative effect will be a
slower, possibly damaged, computer.
The proper procedure for shutting down the
computer operates through the Start button
option to ‘Turn off computer’. If you need to
turn off your computer reasonably quickly then
use the Control-Alt-Delete key combination to
open Task Manager and utilize the Shut Down
option. Windows will make a record that it will
need to do some cleanup on its next boot up
sequence. A sudden shutdown, for instance by
unplugging the computer and cutting power, can
damage components and cause the computer to fail
- never deliberately turn it off that way. If
there is a power outage that shuts it down
there’s a good chance that the PC’s self
diagnostics will allow it to repair any
corruptions automatically the next time it
reboots.
Reboot Regularly (DIY safe)
PCs need to be restarted periodically in order
to reset configurations after new programs or
peripherals have been installed so that they
work correctly. Restarting also clears out
memory and closes down unnecessary processes and
services. In fact, rebooting is the all-time
techie favorite suggestion as the first step for
remedying all sorts of computer problems. Reboot
returns all the software and most of the
hardware to a known initial state, which in
theory should eliminate fluctuating problems.
Scan For Disk Errors (DIY safe)
If it's going to go wrong, the hard disk is the
likely location of the trouble. Your computer
will have a built in tool (ScanDisk or
Error-checking depending on the operating system
version on your PC) for performing a disk scan
to check the hard drives for errors. These
errors can derive from a number of sources. Most
common are system crashes, applications that
have been improperly closed and harboring
harmful programs such as viruses.
If it finds an error it attempts (usually
successfully) to fix it. It's a good idea to run
a scan on a regular schedule, about once every
month or so.
To Top
10 Ways To Trim Your IT Budget
Cash is tight so every SME owner is looking for
ways to cut outlays. IT could look like an easy
target. Trouble is, your IT is one of those
things with the potential to fuel real
efficiency increases in many areas of operation
thus ultimately being a dollar saver. Besides,
sooner or later you will be forced to refresh
old technology, either because it’s stopped
working or is so slow that it’s cramping your
productivity. Here are some suggestions for how
you can rein in the IT budget without
sacrificing opportunity.
- Postpone non-essential purchases – then
bargain shop. Let the lifetime of hardware
extend out a little past the recommended upgrade
date and stick with the current version of your
software programs. If you do need to buy, don’t
just settle for the first price you’re offered.
A number of websites specialize in price
comparing IT products. They often include
details about discounts and other offers that
can reduce the price of a product substantially.
- Use open source software. Not only does Open
Source software enable you to create more
customized solutions to better fit your needs
but it’s way cheaper than proprietary products
(often free) so you can spend your budget on
upgrading hardware infrastructure. You and your
team will need training to make it work and
there’s a migration process involved but it is
definitely a money saver.
- Set up a client/server system to run your
computers. Invest in a robust server (to do all
the processing on behalf of all the individual
terminals you have) and hang even your obsolete
computers off it as thin clients (they don’t
require their own hard drive now).
- Virtualize applications. Virtualization
enables you to run multiple operating systems
and applications on a single server rather than
several. It can dramatically reduce costs for IT
management, hardware, power consumption and
maintenance.
- Compare your internet service provider costs
against the offerings of other providers.
- Get the best deal on communications. Consider
amalgamating your business, mobile/s and
internet services with the one provider –
amalgamating accounts usually means better
pricing. Compare provider’s plans – there are
great plans available out there in the market
that could save you a lot of money.
- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) hardware
costs are dropping and quality is improving
making it a fast growing resource for small
businesses intent on cutting communication
costs.
- Investigate moving to software as a service
solutions (SaaS). Outsourcing via SaaS can
provide savings on software and maintenance as
well as other benefits such as automatic backups
and data security.
- Assess alternatives to new computer purchase.
Consider upgrading e.g. adding memory and
removing unwanted software and files to improve
performance; buying refurbished hardware; in the
case of most PCs, the hardware, packaging and
even warranty coverage are literally identical
to those you would buy new, only with a lower
price tag.
- Turn your computers and monitors off at
night. Make sure everyone in the office does
this as well. It will save you money, your
equipment will last longer and it is much better
for the environment.
Most SME owners
aren’t IT wizards and the learning curve
necessary to make a smart IT decision often
leaves them with less than the best setup. That
can mean a lot of unnecessary expenditure in the
longer term. So, invest your time in finding a
vendor able to understand your business and
tailor their recommendations to particular needs
– it will be time very well spent.
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