Web Design - Important Steps To Better Security And Safety For Online Business

By Author: Daljeet Sidhu
Total Articles: 4717
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Internet users are highly concerned about receiving spam mail and becoming vulnerable to identity theft. If you want customers to do business with you through the web, you must assure them that your website is secure and their information safe. Take all necessary steps to ensure website security and information privacy. Develop a clear security and privacy policy to make your website a safe and effective place to do business.

Building a secure website requires multiple levels of security, including physical security of servers and back-up of data, secure access to data, firewalls, and other defense features against hackers.

Important Steps to Better Website Security

1. Select a well-established and reputed hosting service for your website. Seek information regarding the methods they use to ensure security and privacy of data.

2. Check the security and backup features of your web host including the physical server security, safety of your back-up data and back-up power.

3. Keep a watch on unusual activity on your site. For instance, a sudden increase in bandwidth could imply that a hacker ...
... has broken into your site and is using it to send spam mail.

4. Hire a professional IT team to test your website security, especially if you require customers to enter sensitive data such as health information, credit card numbers, bank accounts, or other financial data.

5. Support multiple access levels for employees to restrict access to data. Give a password to only those employees who must have it to update and view the information, and ask them to change passwords regularly. Immediately change employee passwords when someone leaves your company.

Privacy

To get your customers to register on your website and do business with your company, assure them their information is safe and that they have nothing to worry. Show them your Privacy Policy and clearly explain what information you will collect from them, where the information will be used and whether it will be made available to other companies. Most customers do not want their information to be shared with other companies. Get a third-party seal of approval for your privacy policy for greatest impact.

Limit the amount of information you ask for during registration. Too many questions will annoy customers and discourage registration. If you want a lot of information, then compensate customers by giving them additional rewards, free samples and reports in return for their time. E-commerce websites should use SSL technology to enhance security of online communications and tasks such as web browsing, e-mailing, e-faxing, instant messaging, and other data transfers.

Spam Mail

Nothing gives bad publicity to your business and degrades your reputation faster than spam mail.

Give your customers the chance to subscribe to e-mail letters and advertisements. Prefer double opt-ins, wherein customers subscribe to letters once on your website and then confirm their subscription through e-mail. Additionally, when you use e-mail marketing to communicate with your customers, remember to comply with the CAN-SPAM ACT, 2003. Under this Act, you must label commercial emails, include 'opt-out' messages and the sender's address in them, and refrain from using any kind of deceptive information and false headers in the emails.

Make your website secure. Put down the details of your privacy policy on the website. These steps will help your prospective customers to build and maintain faith and trust in your business.

If you hire a website design vendor, compare price quote from multiple custom web design firms at a Business Network. For further information, read our web site design advice.
About Author:
Daljeet Sidhu is at TradeSeam. Read our