Five Most Asked SEO Questions – 2018 Edition

I’m a big fan of Search Engine Optimisation. I’ve been working in natural search for the better part of half a decade, initially starting in the wake of the Penguin algorithm update. During my short professional career, I’ve seen the industry evolve from somewhat of a “dark art” to the content-led PR integration initiative that is commonplace today – and I’m a big fan of this change.

Despite this, general marketers and some specialists occasionally have a difficult time grasping what SEO is, if it’s important and whether it should be a key focus for digital marketing activity. Ultimately, nowadays I like to think of search engine optimization as not a stand-alone channel, but a “series of best practices for the majority of online (& offline) channels”.

Think about it. Planning a Display campaign? Ever thought of using a “search” call to action? Developing a new landing page for part of a Paid Search strategy? What kind of impact will this have on SEO; will this cause duplicate content? Could we optimize this landing page for the natural search to give an opportunity to rank organically?

Here is a round-up of some of the most common questions I’ve had from clients and digital marketing peers, with my take on the answer.

Is SEO dead?

Nope.

Critics (I like to think of them as Paid Search specialists) have said that SEO is dead or has been dying for many years, this simply is not true. Instead, SEO has evolved in a variety of ways. Borrowing elements from PR, Journalism, Video & even traditional marketing to drive results.

Moreover, the landscape of search has changed dramatically over the last few years. With the introduction of Page Speed & User Insights as a ranking factor and the rise of Voice search, a SEO’ers job 5 years ago is not the same as it is today.

Admittedly with the introduction of Not Provided in 2011, I can see how many marketers place “more value” in Paid Search than Organic, at-least at a keyword level. However, as we’re told more and more – keywords are not the be all and end all.

Ultimately, I think this change in the landscape with natural search professions having to borrow elements from other channels, combined with lack of transparent data really sparked this conversion on “SEO dying”. From my perspective, this is simply untrue and instead shows an ignorance of the channel.

SO, how has SEO evolved?

Historically, grey hat techniques that drove results in the early days of search engine optimization no longer work, however as mentioned SEO is not dead. Instead, since the introduction of the Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird/Knowledge Graph parts of the ranking algorithm, the practices to increase search engine visibility have changed.

Now, there will always be a place for technical SEO and this mostly hasn’t undergone a large change over the last few years. Ensuring that a website is accessible from GoogleBots (or BingBots) and guaranteeing there aren’t any pitfalls that are causing indexation, crawlability or duplicate content issues will play a key part of any SEO strategy of many years to come.

This change in SEO is more to do with content. With the introduction of the Panda, the quality of the content found on a domain is a large part of the on-site ranking factors. Similarly, with the introduction of Penguin, the ability to grow search presence by the purchasing of backlinks is no longer an approach that drives results. Instead, this off-site part of the ranking algorithm, AKA links, need to be generated naturally – you need to give a reason for someone to link to you.

Which is where we arrive back to content. Whether this is a kick-ass blog post, awesome infographic or a great data visualization, these are great opportunities to generate coverage/buzz (links) to your domain.

So while there has been a dramatic shift in how you can grow SEO visibility, the end goal is the same.

Should I be investing in Paid or Organic Search?

It’s a bit of a copout but it’s impossible to answer this question without taking the specific situation of a given brand or domain into consideration. For example, a local business that has a small amount of competition that is looking to drive a few leads per week could develop strong visibility in organic and local search results – with a small spend.

However, if you’re a brand-new eCommerce platform that is looking to compete with some of the web giants such as eBay or Amazon, it’s likely that in the short term organic search is going to be a huge uphill battle – and you may want to look at investing in PPC.

Additionally, there is always going to be a case for established brands to run SEO and PPC simultaneously. A website may have fantastic SEO visibility for a fleet of core services, however, let’s say a new product range or service is added it will be difficult to rank for this in the short term – thus Paid Search is a strong short-term solution to boost search visibility and generate conversions for these services. To take this a step further to a keyword level, brands may want to turn off bidding on keywords where they rank in the top 3 positions organically. Spend can then be re-directed to keywords where is there is limited SEO visibility.

How powerful is your domain? Do you need to generate conversions now? What’s the cost per click for relevant keywords? What’s the competition like in organic search?

Ultimately what we’re talking about above is investing time into a clear digital marketing strategy – identifying long and short-term goals is imperative when making a decision regarding whether PPC, SEO or a combined approach is the best option.

Will backlinks ever not be part of Google’s algorithm?

In my opinion, not anytime soon. However, there have been conversations about dropping links as a ranking factor for nearly as long as links have been part of the algorithm. At SMX Advanced 2012 the previous head of web-spam at Google Matt Cutts stated: “I wouldn’t write the epitaph for links just yet”. Two years later in a Google Webmaster Video dated February 2014 a user wrote to the webspam team asking if there was a “version” of the Google algorithm that excluded backlinks as a ranking factor. Cutts responded:

“We have run experiments like that internally, and the quality looks much, much worse. It turns out backlinks, even though there’s some noise and certainly a lot of spam, for the most part, is still a really, really big win in terms of quality of our search results. So we’ve played around with the idea of turning off backlink relevance, and at least for now, backlink relevance still really helps in terms of making sure that we return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”

Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia announced in December 2013 that links would not be part of their ranking algorithm for some industries. A year later, Yandex brought links back as a key part of their ranking factor. Previously, Yandex was overcome by shady link tactics in their algorithm, so they attempted to try and create an algorithm without them. Evidentially this shift away from links not playing a part of the ranking factor was not a success.

How will Voice search impact SEO over the next few years?

Anyone with even a vague interest in SEO will be aware that the rise of voice search and personal assistants like Alexa or Siri will massively impact the future of search engine optimization. Voice inputted queries on mobile devices will see the rise of “direct answers” to satisfy these voice queries. Sometimes called “rich answers” Google & Bing provide direct answer results in answer to specific user questions, where traditionally links to other websites were displayed.

Try it yourself. Open your phone and ask Google: “who is the president of the united states?” this will display Donald Trump. Next, ask “who is his wife”. This would then display a result which should display Melania Trump.

This is an example of the power of the Hummingbird and Knowledge Graph elements of the Google algorithm. Not only can google work out the entities of “President” “United States” and that “who” refers to a person, the follow-up query Google can understand that the “his” in “who is his wife” is related to the prior question and can connect the dots.

Direct answers are Google’s way to provide the best user experience by answer search-questions in the search engine results pages as quickly as possible.

The impact of this on SEO and website practices alike is that domains will need to provide clear answers to these search led questions.

First seen here.

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How Local SEO Drives More Customers to Your Dealership

Millions of users make local searches each and every day—and they’re looking for businesses just like your dealership.

One quick search and they could turn into a repeat customer. But what if instead of finding your business when making that search, potential customers find a competing dealership instead?

That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important to the success of your dealership—more specifically, local SEO.

So what’s local SEO? In practical terms, it’s the search results returned for local searches—for example, “car dealers New Jersey” or “Hyundai dealers New Jersey.”

Instead of standard Google results, the results for this page will display a local pack: a group of local businesses and detailed information including reviews, addresses, and more—plus a map.

The good news is that there are some basic steps you can take to ensure you’re ahead of the curve, and in front of the right customers, when it comes to local SEO.

Get on the map with GMB

If you’re unsure whether your business has a Google My Business (GMB) profile or not, or need to create a listing, head to www.google.com/business to get started. At this stage, you will either need to create or claim and verify your listing.

Next, it’s time to optimize your GMB profile. You’ll want to complete it as much as possible by including your business hours, dealership logo, photos, categories, description, etc.

For dealership SEO best practices, follow these tips:

• Choose the category that best represents your business (there are several for dealerships).
• If your city name is not in your official business name, don’t add it to your GMB listing.
• Make sure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are all consistent with the contact details listed on your website.
• Use a local phone number (not an 800 number).
• Consider hiring a Google Trusted Photographer to do a virtual tour of your showroom.

Reviews: Your secret weapon

Reviews influence purchase decisions, be they from friends, family, colleagues, or even just online reviews from our peers. But in the local search result pages, reviews have an especially significant influence.

So what can you do to get more reviews? First, you need to make it easy for users to leave you a review. Google can make this a bit challenging, so generate a direct link to simplify the review process. (An online link generator can be found in the author bio at the end of this article.)

Next, you’ll need to identify which customers you’ll be asking for a review, and when the best time is to ask them for it.

Don’t be afraid of negative reviews. There is a chance you’ll get the odd one. It just makes it all the more important to concentrate on getting more and more positive reviews to improve your rating.

Boost rank with local citations

Citations are essentially any mention of your business online, whether they include a link or not. Obviously, citations with links are always going to be most sought after.

Acquiring local citations and links strengthen your specific authority in the area. So how do you get them?

Local business directories are always a great start. For example, if your dealership is in New Jersey, the New Jersey Business Directory would be highly recommended. Your city or metropolitan area will also likely have a business directory, so you should find out how to get your dealership listed in it.

Identify if there are local business associations or chambers of commerce, then join them as well. There’s a good chance you’ll get a listing on their websites. Note: It’s extremely important to all of your citations that your NAP information is consistent with your website and GMB listing.

Other opportunities to get listed or mentioned on local websites include sponsorships, scholarships, and local charities, media, and business awards.

Optimize for more SEO juice

I mentioned earlier that local SEO includes some of the basic principles of traditional SEO. One of those is on-page optimization—optimization of your website.

If you have more than one showroom, you should deploy different location pages with relevant contact information for each. If you have just one showroom, you’ll want to optimize your home page for local searches.

For more details on how to best optimize these pages, check out “Anatomy of an Optimal Local Landing Page Infographic”: niftymarketing.com/optimal-local-landing-page-infographic.

There are a few important areas to focus on:

• Heading and image tags
• Meta titles and descriptions
• Page speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• Local schema markup

SEO and local SEO do not come with hard-and-fast rules. Google doesn’t them to because if there were such rules, then we’d all know how to game the system and users would end up paying with poor search results. Not only that, but the Google empire would come crumbling down.

That’s why SEO experts listen to Google, test and analyze results, and ultimately discuss their findings with others to ensure they get the best search results.

The beauty of local search is that it demonstrates buyer intent—not just research intent.

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Google Releases an SEO Tool that Measures 10 SEO Metrics

Google’s Webmaster Central announced an SEO Audit category to their Chrome Lighthouse developers extension. Should you get excited? The plugin is deceptively basic. However, it’s worth a look because if some of the factors the plugin measures correlate to actual ranking factors, then it may be worthwhile to add this to your SEO toolbox.

The Lighthouse Chrome browser plugin contains audits for performance, progressive web apps, accessibility, best practices and now Google has added a search engine optimization auditing category. As a total package, it’s a nifty app for helping create the very best user experience.

Chrome SEO Plugin is Modest in Scope

The current release of the SEO module is modest in scope. The generated report scores against only ten (very) basic SEO related factors. Google’s announcement acknowledges the inherent shortcomings in the amount of useful information the plugin offers. But it also promises that there will be more features added in the future. Here is what Google published:

The current list of SEO audits is not an exhaustive list, nor does it make any SEO guarantees for Google web search or other search engines. The current list of audits was designed to validate and reflect the SEO basics that every site should get right, and provides detailed guidance to developers and SEO practitioners of all skill levels. In the future, we hope to add more and more in-depth audits and guidance…

Is the Viewport Meta Tag a Ranking Factor?

The SEO metrics the plugin reports on are somewhat curious. For example, one of the metrics is the Viewport Meta-Element. We know that Google is moving toward a mobile index, so it makes sense that mobile friendliness might be a ranking factor, either directly or indirectly as an indexing factor.

This is an SEO plugin from Google that is ranking the viewport meta element in the context of SEO. For anyone still on the fence about moving toward a mobile-first website, this should be a wake-up call.

Are Legible Fonts a Ranking Factor?

This metric about the size of a font is related to mobile-friendliness. The size of a font affects how comfortable it is to read content on a mobile device. Mobile friendliness is not a metric commonly associated with SEO.

Optimizing for a search engine has traditionally meant making it easy for a search engine to discover and crawl your content. Another aspect of SEO has been to create content that a search engine can understand.

How easy it is for a user to read content does not fit into the traditional search engine optimization box. This is a User Optimization Metric, not a Search Engine Optimization metric. Unless font legibility on mobile devices is a Google ranking factor.

Is the size of a font for mobile devices a ranking factor? This is not known. Given that the Lighthouse SEO Module ranks it, it would be safe to at least treat font size as if it were a ranking factor.

Is the Meta Description an SEO Factor?

The meta description is another curious metric to include in an SEO plugin. Traditionally the meta description has been used by Google for display purposes only. It has never been regarded as an element used for ranking a website. There are anecdotal reports of ranks dropping after changing the meta description.

Has Google ever commented on meta descriptions? Yes! Google’s own Matt Cutts has encouraged publishers to either have unique meta descriptions or no meta descriptions and to absolutely avoid duplicate meta descriptions.

Given this history of how Google treats meta description, the fact that Google included meta descriptions as an SEO metric is highly interesting. It adds more fuel to the debate over whether meta descriptions are a ranking factor or not. What do you think?

Ten Google Lighthouse SEO Factors

Here is a list of the ten SEO factors that Google Chrome’s Lighthouse measures:

1. Meta Viewport Element
2. Title Element
3. Meta Description
4. Page has successful HTTP status code
5. Links have descriptive text
6. Page isn’t blocked from indexing
7. Document has a valid hreflang
8. Document has a valid rel=canonical
9. Document uses legible font sizes
10. Document avoids browser plugins

Is the Lighthouse SEO Module Useful?

I will be frank. The Lighthouse SEO Chrome extension is not an expert level tool. It doesn’t even come close. However, given that it’s a tool created by Google, it may be useful for you to explore. More information is always welcome because data is used. It will be interesting to see what Google adds next.

First seen here.

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Cybersecurity Threats in the Age of IoT

Cybersecurity has become one of the most talked about issues in recent times due to the massive amounts of hacking stories that have taken place over the last few years. We can all clearly remember the massive Target hack and the security breach at Equifax which comprised almost everyone’s information.

Everybody can appreciate cybersecurity and, in this current climate, must be knowledgeable of it. More and more of the world is becoming interconnected and more and more people are going online. This poses a huge security risk as data from millions of people will, paradoxically, become more secure and more vulnerable simultaneously. This is cause for great alarm as the full reach of what a cybersecurity flaw can produce is still not entirely known. The Equifax hack would be a sure indicator that, at the very least, it isn’t good.

Not everyone can be sure what will happen but this, of course, cannot get in the way or inhibit progress in any way. Oddly, these two things must act in perfect harmony. We must have consistent and eager progress while maintaining the risk despite our concerns.

This issue does not become any less complex in the Internet of Things. This new incoming age brings with it all kinds of intricate ways that hackers and other exploitative programs can deceive and infiltrate our personal data. During the tech revolution, there are a few things to be acutely aware of in order to prevent a total collapse of your privacy.

The Internet of Things brings with it many innovations that can not only assist us in our lives but can change our lives altogether. Almost everyone has a smartphone and smart home assistants are already becoming ubiquitous. We have in our homes all sorts of devices that are constantly listening and watching us better our lives and make living easier in general. We collectively love these devices as they can keep us in order and drive us closer to a future present only in our dreams.

However, these come with the risks that all electronically inclined and connected objects do. For instance, say an individual has a smart home alarm system with a customized 5 digit security code that has all the bells and whistles. All it takes is someone compromising your network security or interacting with a security camera in your home to grab that passcode and have access to your house, alarm free.

The same goes for Apple Pay which, while secure, is one broad hack away from leaving your personal banking information subject to the view of a criminal. When most of our electronics that record our voices submit what they heard to their engine they usually convert it into text. This text can then be absconded with by a criminal who can use this information against you. These, for better or for worse, are not even the harshest ways we can be compromised.

The tried-and-true formula, of course, still reigns true and that is most individuals do not protect their passwords. Over 80% of all hacks are completed using social exploits, which is to say that somebody lies in order to obtain information.

Sometimes a hack can occur from the silliest mistake, like leaving your password on a sticky note on your computer or written plainly on your desk so you can quickly remember your login. These mistakes, combined with the Internet of Things, put you at an even bigger risk as they are now more ways to find this information using interconnected cameras and voice recognition software.

Some companies have even decided to switch over to biological authentication which is usually a retina scan or thumbprint scan. This is costly and often times averse to the employees. Unfortunately, the risks associated with online communication and progress are ones not easily dealt with.

Cybersecurity teams do the best they can to create anti-malware so that people who download bad links from their emails don’t end up losing everything. They also create firewall software that prevents your online connection from becoming compromised disallowing intrusion.

Regardless we can not let the risks impede our progress or our future and we must do everything we can to make sure we keep our information secure and our own. That means being careful and cautious while simultaneously keeping our heads high and our vision glued towards a better world.

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Cyber security threat to persist in 2018

Cybersecurity will continue to be a ’hot topic’ this year, demanding the attention of technology experts.

According to statistics of the Information Security Department under the Ministry of Information and Communications, 95 percent of issues related to information security are caused by human negligence.

Recently, passwords of more than 1.4 billion e-mail accounts in the world have been disclosed. The Viet Nam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) analyzed and found some 438,000 accounts in Viet Nam, of which some 930 had the government domain name, “gov.vn”.

At a year-end meeting on information security-related issues last year, deputy minister of information and communications Nguyen Thanh Hung said the situation of information security would continue to be complicated in 2018.

Notably, hackers would use smarter technologies, including artificial intelligence. In addition to this, cyber attacks would become increasingly dangerous and more difficult to detect as hackers were likely to use advanced threats to paralyze national infrastructure, Hung said.

He also pointed out one of the main reasons for information insecurity was low levels of awareness.

The complexity of information technology depends on the variety of devices being used, with many users in organizations and businesses using personal devices, according to Hung.

If they do not have security solutions, the risk to their information will be implicit right in the mobile device itself.

Currently, with the development of technology and high speed of transmission lines, the number of internet users in the country has increased rapidly.

But users’ perception of information security is low. A majority of Vietnamese people do not have the habit of using software copyrights.

VNCERT director Nguyen Trong Duong said malicious software, malicious code, and viruses that infiltrated computers were invisible to users.

He emphasized on raising awareness of users to detect infected devices while equipping them with cyber-security knowledge, information technology skills and routines of scanning and upgrading software.

Last year, damages caused by computer viruses in Viet Nam were worth VND12.3 trillion (US$547 million), increasing from VND10.4 trillion in 2016.

Ngo Tuan Anh, vice president of BKAV technology group, said attacks on the Internet of Things equipment or malicious codes of blackmailing or digging out virtual money were increasing both in number and sophistication.

Statistics also show that 55 percent of users use the same passwords for many accounts, which risk password exposure.

Technology experts predict that all security network threats this year will stem from attacks on Internet-connected devices.

Thus, besides raising awareness of users, enterprises and organizations need to apply security policies and technology.

Organisations and enterprises, as well as individual computer users using the internet, should restrict the disclosure of personal information via mobile phones, emails and internet services.

Organisations and businesses especially need to protect critical information and implement backup and recovery plans to secure website and email assets. — VNS

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The Ultimate 2018 SEO Ranking Checklist

Keep your page off the bottom of everyone’s search results by checking out our 2018 SEO ranking checklist.

In the digital world, search engine optimization has been an absolute necessity. Things are changing. SEO experts like Neil Patel are evening talking about the “Death of SEO”.

Like everything else digital, common practices change so fast that it’s easy to get left behind. SEO isn’t dead yet, but it is time to update our ‘best practices’ list for SEO rankings in the year 2018.

So sit back, take some notes, and get ready to stay on top of those Google searches.

Let’s get started:

1. Respect the Google-bot

When you’re trying to improve a page’s ranking, it’s important to remember how Google finds your page for its output. Google uses web-crawlers to find your page and if your content isn’t easy for the bot to navigate, you’ve already lost the game.

Learn how to make things easy for the humble Google-bot and the world of SEO will remain open to you. You can achieve this by seeking out and hiring someone versed in technical SEO. The hope is that this person will create clean sitemaps for your site which will make them easy to index by Google crawlers.

2. Do your Keyword Research

If you don’t do your keyword research, you’ll never increase your page’s ranking. A great resource for this is KWFinder. It shows you search volumes, ease of ranking, and the top sites already ranking for that keyword. In addition, you’ll also see closely related keywords and synonyms.

Start with guessing a given user’s intent and come up with a primary keyword. From there, try to come up with as many related keywords as you can, and center your research around those. If you’ve properly guessed the intent, then your keyword research can help take your page to the top.

Don’t underestimate long-tail keywords. These can be a section or the entirety of your content title, but typically are a longer phrase that you can imagine people searching. For example, “Know the Difference Between AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning“.

This is both the title and the long-tail keyword of one of our more successful articles. We already had content targeting the keywords “AI”, “Machine Learning”, and “Deep Learning”. For that reason, we didn’t want to use those in this article. At the same time, we could easily imagine people searching for “the difference between AI,” and so this long-tail choice seemed ideal. As it turned out, people do search for this term quite often.

3. Find out What Google Thinks is Relevant

This tip will require some research on Google’s SERP, or search engine results page. This goes hand-in-hand with your keyword research and will help you fine-tune the kind of intent you should be basing your SEO efforts on.

Try doing some searches for your intent. You might find a ton of competition, which is useful to research what kinds of pages are currently ranking. If you’re lucky, you might even find nothing. That can be a double-edged sword because it means that your intent is either dead wrong or will be fantastically easy to rank for.

4. Put Your Best Person on the Front Lines

If you have content on your site, then you should be proud of it. If you have multiple content contributors, though, then you need to pick a star. If you have someone who consistently makes credible, authoritative content, then you need to find a way to amplify their content.

Google picks up on things like credibility. If a link fails to give authoritative results, users will click on other links in the list. After a while, Google will realize that their top search term isn’t satisfying the user, and it’ll rank other pages higher.

5. Don’t be Afraid to ‘get Meta’

If you don’t already know how to set a good meta description, then you need to do some research on the subject. That little snippet of information determines how Google ranks your page so optimizing it is an absolute must.

If you make your meta description pop by utilizing hot keywords your page has a much better chance of ranking highly.

The meta description should at once summarize and be a hook for your content. Many times, if the meta description doesn’t interest the reader, they won’t click on your search result. Ensure it has the most useful and easily digestible information available.

6. Related Keywords Make for a Happy Homepage

If your keyword research stopped at the ‘best’ one you found, you’re doing it wrong. Using semantically related keywords increases the chance that Google is going to see your page as relevant. Remember, Google’s web-crawlers are much better at noticing text than they are at analyzing images and videos.

So say it with me now: One good keyword is not enough. Ever.

7. Enhance Your Visibility

This one is mostly for those in media or any other field that consistently uses compelling images and headlines.

Be aware of the ‘snippet’ that is displayed when your page shows up on a SERP. A better snippet gives you greater visibility when your page comes up in a search. Plus, Google tends to like it when the credit for the featured visual lines up with the snippet.

8. Loading Times are Crucial

Fast loading times and a secure page is great for more than just your users. If your site doesn’t sport an HTTPS at the beginning, Google is less likely to care about you.

The reason behind this is mainly because Google cares about its users. HTTPS has been a focus for Google over the last couple of years, so err on the side of caution and work on your page optimization. If possible, they’ll point people toward the safer site, and that should mean you.

Plus, remember when I mentioned how users bouncing off your page is bad for your ranking? Well, expect users to be in a hurry and optimize your loading speed accordingly. Faster load times on a secure site will seem far more legitimate, which should help reduce your bounce rate. With luck, it’ll also keep your ranking stable.

9. Who is Going to Amplify This?

The people (or pages) you associate with can make or break you, professionally. And Google knows it.

When you have solid links and mentions from authoritative sources around the web, that gets noticed by Google’s crawlers. If you’re getting callbacks from major outlets, you are almost guaranteed a top spot in the SERP.

Domains with links back to your site are called referring domains, and they are extremely important to your overall domain authority. Ahrefs is a great analytics tool for keeping an eye on these factors.

Source

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Are organizations prepared for the ransomware threat?

When ransomware like WannaCry and Petya wreaked havoc on global organizations last year, many were left seemingly defenseless against this relentless, but not entirely new, threat.

After all, ransomware has been doing the rounds for several years and its potential for disruption and harm had been widely discussed within the security world and beyond. Despite this, many organizations were still not able to effectively defend against the attacks.

In order to understand the scope of the threat, the defensive gap against ransomware, and its root causes, Sophos commissioned a survey to find out the state of endpoint security and ransomware defense readiness from respondents spanning industries across five continents.

The survey focused mainly on mid-sized organizations, with half of the respondents in organizations 1000-5000 employees in size, and the other half 100-1000 employees in size. Regardless of organization size, however, the survey was remarkably consistent in its findings.

• Over half of organizations (54%) were hit by ransomware in the past year, with two attacks per organization on average.
• A further 31% of respondents say they expect to be hit by a ransomware attack in the near future.
• The median impact of a ransomware attack is $133k per organization affected – which includes not only the ransom paid but also the cost of resource to resolve the issue.
• 77% of organizations that report being hit by ransomware say they were running up-to-date endpoint security when attacked.
• Over half (54%) of organizations say they do not have any dedicated ransomware protection in place.

Much of the common thinking with IT security is once an organization encounters a specific threat, they learn from it, shore up their defenses and are better prepared for it next time. But the survey results show that ransomware throws this paradigm in the bin: Survey respondents say they were hit by ransomware again and again, and expect that they’ll fall victim to it again in the future.

Certain industries were especially pessimistic about their chances of evading a future, repeated ransomware attack: Healthcare, energy/utilities, professional services and retail respondents were amongst those who were hardest hit by ransomware in the past, with 76% of healthcare respondents saying they’ve been the victim of an attack.

After a ransomware attack takes place, it can be easy to point fingers at the breached organization: What kind of defenses did they have in place? Were their systems updated and patched correctly?

But yet again, when talking about ransomware, the old paradigms shift, as more than three-quarters of survey respondents say they were running up-to-date endpoint technology when ransomware hit. This reveals one of the key findings of this study: traditional endpoint protection alone cannot and does not stop the latest in ransomware attacks.

Last year’s headline-grabbing ransomware attacks made investigating anti-ransomware technologies a greater priority for many organizations, but it still hasn’t necessarily motivated these organizations to implement these technologies. 45% of survey respondents said they realize that anti-ransomware technology is important and that they plan to implement it in the future, but haven’t done so yet. (Another 7% said they realize the value of this kind of protection but have no plans to implement it.)

As not all anti-ransomware technologies are equally effective against the ever-evolving threat of ransomware, organizations may find themselves invested in technologies that offer little protection when the attacks occur.

The report dives deeper into this, asking survey respondents to identify the statement – out of a choice of four – that correctly defines what anti-ransomware and anti-exploit technologies do. Less than one-third of respondents (31%) were able to select the correct answer. With this lack of understanding, a significant number of organizations may believe they are adequately protected against the ransomware threat, but in fact are not.

If this all seems overwhelming, take heart in the fact that you’re not alone: 87% of respondents said the malware threat had grown more complex in the last year. To effectively stop ransomware in its tracks, traditional endpoint security isn’t enough. Organizations need the strongest defense against these persistent threats and should investigate anti-exploit and anti-ransomware technologies in order to be fully prepared for future attacks.

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Maersk Reinstalled 45,000 PCs and 4,000 Servers to Recover From NotPetya Attack

• Maersk CEO: “We had to reinstall an entire infrastructure”.

• Maersk covered 80% of all shipping volume without any IT.

• Maersk: We were collateral damage of probably a state attack

• Maersk: NotPetya damage between $250 and $300 million

• Maersk CEO now sees the good side of the incident

The world’s largest container shipping company —A.P. Møller-Maersk— said it recovered from the NotPetya ransomware incident by reinstalling over 4,000 servers, 45,000 PCs, and 2500 applications over the course of ten days in late June and early July 2017.

By all accounts, this is a monumental effort from Maersk’s IT staff, equivalent to installing a new infrastructure from the ground up.

The effort is even more jaw-dropping when we take into consideration that Maersk is the world’s largest shipping companies, hauling over a fifth of the world’s ship containers.

These new details came to light yesterday, while Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chairman of A.P. Møller-Maersk, participated in a panel on securing the future of cyberspace at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.

The incident Snabe was referencing is the NotPetya ransomware outbreak that hit companies around the world.

“I’ll never forget, It was the 27 of June when I was woken up at 4 o’clock in the morning. A call came from the office that we had suffered a cyber attack,” Snabe said.

“The impact of that is that we basically found that we had to reinstall an entire infrastructure,” Snabe continued. “We had to install 4,000 new servers, 45,000 new PCs, 2,500 applications.”

“And that was done in a heroic effort over ten days. Normally —I come from the IT industry— I would say it’s gonna take six months. It took ten days,” Snabe added, referring to his previous position as SAP’s CEO.

The consequences were felt almost immediately in Maersk’s operations, but Snabe says his company’s employees faced the storm bravely, with minimal impact on the firm’s activity.

“Imagine a company where a ship with 20,000 containers would enter a port every 15 minutes, and for ten days you have no IT.

“It’s almost impossible to even imagine. And we actually overcome that problem with human resilience,” Stabe said. “We only had a 20% drop in volume, so we managed 80% of that volume manually. […] Customers were great contributors to overcoming that.”

In hindsight, Snabe says he feels that his company was just “collateral damage of probably a state attack.”

The NotPetya ransomware initially spread as a malicious update of M.E.Doc, a popular Ukrainian accounting software. Many non-Ukrainian companies were also infected because NotPetya spread to internal networks via VPN. The ransomware infected a company’s offices in different countries after it initially infected Ukrainian headquarters.

Snabe’s remarks regarding NotPetya being a state attack come after many cyber-security companies attributed to NotPetya ransomware to a cyber-espionage group named TeleBots that many suspects is the cyber-arm of a Russian intelligence agency.

Ukrainian officials didn’t mince words or time blaming NotPetya on Russia, and recently, even the CIA officially blamed the Russian military’s GRU GTsST, or Main Center for Special Technology, as the source of the NotPetya ransomware, in a classified report seen by Washington Post reporters.

Snabe also said his company estimated the damages caused by NotPetya to between $250 and $300 million. This is also the damages tag that both US pharmaceutics giant Merck and US-based international courier service FedEx also put on the NotPetya aftermath.

Maersk was lucky to fully recover in ten days after the incident. A month after NotPetya hit some of its factories, Merck was still not producing some types of bulk products used for products such as KEYTRUDA, JANUVIA, and ZEPATIER, critical drugs for various illnesses.

FedEx was also unlucky, revealing that some of the NotPetya damage was permanent, and admitting that its TNT subsidiary might have lost some customer package details for good.

“It was an important wake-up call,” he said. “We were basically average when it comes to cyber-security, like many companies. And this was a wake-up call to become not just good —we actually have a plan to come in a situation where our ability to manage cyber-security becomes a competitive advantage.”

In the subsequent discussions, Snabe also urged fellow Davos World Economic Forum participants to focus on securing cyberspace.

A video of Snabe’s comments regarding Maersk’s NotPetya recovery efforts and more is embedded below. The discussion is right at the beginning, following the 02:20 mark.

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How to 2x Your Traffic This Year with Video SEO

Video is the massive untapped opportunity in 2018.

We’ve seen how video traffic has grown in recent years and according to industry studies, it is expected to flourish even more.

Cisco predicts that by 2021 about 80 percent of global Internet consumption will be video content, and from 2016 to 2021, global Internet video traffic will increase threefold.

Now is the right time to incorporate video into your brand’s SEO and content strategy.

Optimize your content for the world’s second largest search engine – YouTube.

There is so much potential for video SEO this year.

Video Optimization: Why You Should Care

All these years you’ve worked hard on your website, creating a wealth of awesome content in order to rank in Google.

However, competition is fierce in the world’s largest search engine.

Ranking on Page 1 – let alone in Position 1 – of Google’s SERPs is extremely difficult.

Not all your articles will rank well on Google.

By keeping them as is, you’re essentially letting them go to waste.

To maximize the articles you already have, you just need to turn your content into videos and publish them on YouTube.

The popular video-sharing platform has an active worldwide user base of more than 1 billion, an immense market that’s worth investing into.

If you do video optimization right, you’re going to get great results from YouTube. You don’t need to have killer rankings as most of the traffic is from browsing and recommended videos.

Your 3 Video Optimization Goals

• Ranking in Google with videos.
• Ranking on YouTube via YouTube search.
• Getting suggested on YouTube.

How Video SEO on YouTube Works

Approaching video SEO on YouTube is a bit different than regular SEO on Google and other search engines. YouTube knows all the metrics and indicators of good content.

The goal is to keep people on the site, and if you do that, YouTube will promote you for free if you get your optimization right.

Video SEO: Things You Need to Do

1. Find Video Topics

Here are the top three ways to come up with a shortlist of video topics:

• Take existing content you already have and turn it into videos. This is the easiest win because you already have the content. Get a list of your top performing blog posts in terms of interaction and repurpose them into the video.
• Analyze your competitors. The idea here is to look for competing channels, find what topics they are covering, and model that.
• Take your ideas and run them through YouTube autocomplete. YouTube will provide the most relevant topic ideas

 2. Get More out of Every Video You Create

YouTube looks at a lot of factors in determining a quality video. However, the most important ones are:

• Watch time.
• Engagement.

YouTube’s goal is to keep people on the site – so the longer you keep people on, engaged, and watching videos, the better.

Tips for Getting People to Watch

• Make sure to create a good title, description, and thumbnail to encourage viewers to click and watch your video.
• Focus on high CTR headlines – intriguing headlines that match with highly searched topics – and use bold colors on your video thumbnail.
• The first 15 seconds of your video has to be awesome to keep the viewer engaged. Make sure to hook your viewers in. Provide a preview or a teaser of what the video is about.

How to Keep Users Engaged?

At the end of the video, ask them to comment, like, and subscribe.
Use cards to promote CTAs as well as other videos and playlists.
Add an end screen to promote more videos or playlists on your channel.

3. Easy Video Optimization for More Traffic

Studies show that there isn’t as much correlation between keywords and actual rankings within YouTube. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t optimize for keywords.

Even though it may mean less for rankings, it still matters for understanding what the video is about and relevancy. Keywords should be on your video’s upload filename, title, and description.

Most channel traffic will come from YouTube’s Suggested Videos on the right sidebar, and this is where you want your videos to show up. In order to get there, make sure to maximize your video tags.

How to Optimize with Tags

• Use browser plugins such as Tube Buddy or vidIQ.
• Search your main keywords, find the videos ranking, and take note of the tags they are using.
• When you’re setting up your YouTube video, vidIQ will suggest relevant tags from other popular videos.

4. Multiply Your Reach with Video Promotion

You need to promote your YouTube video right after publishing it. This can help increase view velocity, which will help your video to show up more in the search.

YouTube Video Promotions Tips

• Email it to your list.
• Push to social media.
• Embed on your blog.
• Paid traffic.

Video Production Challenges & Solutions

Producing Videos Isn’t as Easy as It Sounds

It can be really expensive to produce videos in-house. Industry standards can even reach up to $1,000 per video minute.

An HD camera can also cost thousands – let alone lights, studio, actors, editing, editing software.

On top of that, there’s the simple fact that most people don’t want to be on camera.

Key Takeaways

• Optimizing for YouTube is fairly simple compared to the long process it takes when optimizing for Google. YouTube will even promote your video content for free if you optimize it right.
• About 25 percent of Google searches have at least one video in them, so you can also rank in the SERPs with your optimized YouTube video.
• When looking for video topics, you can take easy wins. Just turn your best content into videos.
• During the video creation process, remember that it’s important to keep watch time and engagement up.
• Make sure to use tags if you want to get into Suggested Videos, where most of the traffic is
• Multiply your video’s reach by promoting on your blog, email, social, and paid search.

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3 Biggest Cybersecurity Threats Facing Small Businesses Right Now

Nearly two-thirds of businesses suffered a cybercrime in the past year. There is no reason to think there will be fewer this year.

Technology has quickly engulfed the world around us. Everything we do, both at a business and personal level, seems to involve technology in one way or another. However, as that happens, small businesses continue to be a top target for hackers, with the number of organizations hit by cybercrime rising each year. According to The Ponemon Institute’s 2017 State of Cybersecurity in Small & Medium-Sized Businesses report, 61 percent of businesses experienced a cyber attack in 2017, signifying a 6 percent increase from the previous year’s 55 percent. Data breaches were up to 54 percent from 50 percent in 2016.

This year promises faster internet, more connectivity, and unfortunately, more cybersecurity threats. Threat Horizon 2018, from the Threat Horizon series by the non-profit association Information Security Forum (ISF), shows that with the growing connectivity, there will be an increase in the information security threat landscape.

1. Internet of Things (IoT) leaks.

As real-time data collection becomes increasingly important, the IoT is growing too. From monitoring traffic and collecting real-time patient information to optimizing the uptime of industrial equipment, organizations are massively acquiring IoT devices. However, these devices aren’t always secure. This creates a potential backdoor into the organization, warns the ISF.

IoT works so great because it’s comprised of dozens of devices that hide in plain sight. Be it alarm systems, GPS, web cameras, HVAC or medical devices, such as pacemakers, it’d be hard to guess which of these devices are even connected to the internet in the first place. But since IoT devices lack built-in security, they are often easy targets by hackers.

Attackers usually use automated programs to locate IoT devices. Once located, attackers attempt to connect to the device using the default admin credentials. And since most users don’t change them, this is usually a success for the attacker. Once in, the hackers can easily install malware, basically taking the system under their control.

Daniel Soderberg, CEO of EyeOnPass, advises changing all passwords immediately when you acquire a new device. “I wouldn’t operate any device with the default password,” he warns. “Default passwords are usually printed and freely available, exposing the user to all manner of cyber dangers.”

2. Opaque algorithms.

The Threat Horizon 2018 report also warns of the increasing using of algorithms. As organizations continue to fully trust algorithms with the operation and decisions concerning critical systems, the report says, they lose the visibility into the functioning and interaction of their systems.

The lack of proper and transparent interactions between algorithms poses a security risk in case unintended interactions between algorithms create incidents — like the U.S. Treasury Bonds “flash crash” of October 2014 that saw bond yields drastically drop briefly before the algorithms corrected themselves.

“We know they’re going to do some quirky stuff from time-to-time,” says Steve Durbin, managing director of the ISF. “You need to understand some of the exposure you have to algorithmic systems. We’re building more and more of our systems on top of algorithms — industrial control, critical infrastructure. There’s an increased risk in this space we need to be addressing.”

To be able to manage these risks, organizations need to have a human monitoring the execution of operations and decisions often left to algorithms. The report advises organizations to know the risks that come with algorithm-controlled systems and know when to involve a human. Also, they must update their code maintenance policies and identify alternatives to treating algorithm-related incidents, especially when insurance isn’t an option.

3. Security researchers are being silenced.

Security researchers are often the whistleblowers. They impart knowledge about digital vulnerabilities, making sure systems are secure and users’ data remains in the intended hands. When they are silenced, either by the government or private companies, it’s often a loss for all users.

With software replacing hardware in most major sectors, users and businesses depend on researchers to unearth vulnerabilities and make them public as part of ongoing efforts to improve security. However, lately, manufacturers have been responding to such actions by taking legal action instead of working with the research to fix those vulnerabilities. The ISF predicts that this trend will only grow; exposing customers to vulnerabilities that manufacturers have decided to hide rather than fix.

To protect themselves, the ISF advises technology buyers, which include small businesses, to insist on transparency during the procurement process. It advises manufacturers to take it more positively when vulnerabilities are found within their systems by rewarding the researchers rather than attempting to punish them.

Considering that a researcher might find a vulnerability in a tool in 2018 and not report it, it’s imperative for the small business owner to take a step further in protecting themselves, even if it means working with other business in order to come up with an affordable solution.

Transparency is key.

When it comes to security, transparency has a great role to play. But this part has long been left for the security professionals. If all users reflected some degree of transparency, security in the cyberspace would be easier to achieve. If the non-technical managers and leaders understood the impact of good and poor protection, they would use the cyber assets they have more responsibly. Employees would be more careful about the devices they introduce to the network.

As the business owner, it’s your job to carefully manage the inventory of the connected IoT devices. “Some things have internet capabilities that you didn’t ask for and will never use,” says Leon Adato of SolarWinds adding that any devices that don’t need to be connected to the internet should be disconnected.

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