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Three Ways to Share Confidential Info (More) Safely

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I often need to get sensitive information from clients: domain registrar login, FTP credentials, hosting account login, etc. Sending this kind of info by email is not a good idea, it’s too insecure (although it’s hard to keep clients from doing it anyway sometimes).

What should you do instead? A phone call to share long passwords is not that helpful. But there are some online tools that are built to ‘self-destruct’ once they’re read or after a specific short timeframe. Here are three.

QuickForget.com

This is my go-to tool for sending secrets online. You can attach files, and set it to delete the message after a set number of views or a certain number of hours. The sender types or pastes their sensitive info, selects options and saves, then sends the recipient the link. Very easy to use.

OneTimeSecret.com

This one allows you to set a time limit as short as 5 minutes (virtually a self-destruct on reading) and a password (or generate a random one).

privnote.com

Similar to the first two, privnote also has some other features. By default it asks for confirmation by the recipient before showing and destroying the note (which you can disable). You can also send yourself, the sender, a note when the private message has been destroyed. And you can set the message to self-destruct immediately after reading.

Any of these tools is a much safer option than using email to send confidential info.

Did you find this information useful? Please share with your friends and colleagues and comment below if you have questions.

Weekly Links Roundup – Outbound Links, Page Quality, Google Reviews, Email Etiquette

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The top website and marketing links of the week.

I saw an interesting post on the Yoast blog this week called “Do Outbound Links Matter for SEO?” That’s a good question! The answer is yes, they do, but not for the reasons you might think. Follow the link to find out why outbound links matter.

In another Yoast post they discuss how to identify and fix low-quality pages – those pages that aren’t contributing to SEO on your site, but could with some attention and focused tweaking.

A new client is looking to display their Google Reviews on their website. This is easily doable, easier in WordPress with plugins, but even if you’re not using WordPress you can still display your reviews – here is a guide to setting them up. Adding reviews and testimonials is a great way to share social proof – indicators that others like your services or products enough to write about them. Testimonials and recommendations from actual users are very important to a lot of online purchasers!

Finally… do you get too much email? Is a lot of it really unnecessary? Here’s an email charter designed to help you improve the usefulness of your emailings, save your own time, and increase awareness of how email impacts your friends and colleagues. Maybe something in the charter will resonate with you…

 

Weekly Links Roundup – WordPress 4.8, Holler Box, Getting Subscribers

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

WordPress 4.8 was released as I was writing this post… The two big things you’ll most likely notice are:

  • New native image, video and audio widgets, finally! You can now display this content in widgets without HTML or extra plugins.
  • Link boundaries – know how you sometimes will grab a few letters from the previous or next word when making a link? This new feature makes it more clear where the link starts and stops.
  • To learn more about the new features, visit this post.

Looking for something like a chat or popup, but not annoying like popups can be? Try Holler Box. This new WordPress plugin is customizable and a pretty elegant way of making quick announcements or capturing email addresses without being so obtrusive. Get it here or read a review about the features and potential usage.

Speaking of capturing email addresses… how do you actually start getting more signups and subscribers? It can be hard, as you probably know. Learn how to ask for it in this post.

Friday Link Wrapup – Logo Design, Email Lists, Mobile SEO

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

In the market for a new logo for your business? Here are some important reasons why professional logo design doesn’t cost $5 and also why your new logo should cost  more than your lunch. Food for thought – no pun intended.

Here’s a short piece on what makes a good logo to follow that up.

Looking for suggestions on how to create an opt-in campaign to grow your email subscriber list? Here are 7 ideas that will not only build your list, but provide the value needed to motivate those new signups. These include:

  • Free ebooks
  • Discounts on your products or services
  • Case studies
  • Free info or resource lists

And finally, here’s a report on how eye-tracking results have changed for mobile devices since 2014 – this info can be invaluable if you’re trying to rank higher in mobile search engine results pages (SERPS). The big takeaway – if you want the clicks on mobile, you need to be in the 4th position or higher in SERPS.

Friday Link Wrapup – Email Marketing, Productivity and Facebook

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The top website and marketing links for this week.

If you use email marketing, here’s a list of 7 design mistakes you may be making with your email campaigns and how to avoid them.

When you have all that spare time over the holidays, check out one (or more) of these free ebooks on productivity.

This is rather long but worth reading – how to drive traffic to your site with your old Facebook content.

And finally, a guide to streamlining your email strategy to help you deliver quick content hits to your customers.

Operate as if You'll be in Business Tomorrow

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I read a great quote this morning that just came to mind again, triggered by an email I just received.

It was from a Fort Collins landscape maintenance company that we’ve used for a couple of years. Back in March we received a flyer from them about spring cleanup specials. I called and spoke to someone in the office and waited for someone to call me back about an appointment, but no one ever did. 

Later in the spring I called and emailed them asking for an appointment for aeration and weed help. I couldn’t get an answer by phone, and never got a reply to email either. I assumed they must either be out of business or too busy to get back to me.

The email I just received was very congenial, letting me know they were ready to schedule me for a sprinkler blowout on October 14th between 1 and 2:00 pm. I asked them to remove me from their mailing list.

The quote this morning was from Richard Branson and is right on the mark: “Let’s do business like there is a tomorrow.”

Even if you’re so busy you can’t think, always remember that nurturing an existing client relationship is much easier than building a new one. Even an email or call that takes 30 seconds can make the difference between a happy client and one who’s left for a competitor.