Redesigning your website is a great way to get a fresh start. But how do you know when it’s actually time to get the ball rolling on an overhaul? 

Many times, a redesign begins when an executive or marketer begins to feel like the website is outdated. This can especially be true if a competitor, or someone in an adjacent industry recently redesigned their site. 

To help shed some light on how businesses look at redesign frequency, we surveyed 6,000+ HubSpot customers about their redesign plans for the future. The results revealed some interesting trends that should help you determine when to start your own project.

A Look Into the Redesign Timelines of 6K+ Businesses

Of the 6,000+ companies that answered the survey, 57% told us of their plans to redesign this year. That’s 3,500 website redesigns from this survey group alone.

Here’s the breakdown of specifically when marketers are planning to redesign:

The last time we surveyed our customers, their redesign timeline was within 18-24 months. Why the shift in frequency? Well, when you think about how much your business has changed in that timeframe, this shift becomes much easier to understand. As you learn more about your audience, gather feedback from visitors, and develop a better sense of how certain pages are performing, design needs begin to crop up more often. 

Beyond general redesign timelines, we also looked at how redesign timeframes compare by industry. There were over 40 industries captured in this survey, but here are the top three:

1. Software
2. Marketing Services
3. Consulting / Advisory

How does the redesign timeframe breakdown by industry? Let’s take a closer look …

Software / SaaS

Marketing Services

Consulting / Advisory

What can we learn from these timeframes? How can we apply these findings to our own business? There are a few lessons here, starting with when you can start your next website redesign. Let’s dive in.

When Should You Start Thinking About Your Next Website Redesign? 

Of the 40 different industries captured by this survey, software companies are redesigning most often, while construction/building materials companies seem to be redesigning least often.

When should you start thinking about your next website redesign? It depends.

While there’s no one perfect universal answer, we’d recommend that you begin planning your redesign anywhere between 90-120 days before you’d like to launch it. Again, this is simply a general guideline. The larger — and more complex — your plans are, the more time you should allow. 

To get a better sense of timeline, we’d recommend defining your strategy and then determine your goals of the new website. Once you nail down your goals, you can begin to plan your redesign needs and develop an approximate sense of timeline.

There’s a Better Way to Redesign Your Website

Many website redesigns take 3-4 months, have a moderate up-front cost, and don’t guarantee success. In fact, 1/3 of marketers are unhappy with their last website redesign. 

Growth-Driven Design helps address many of these key issues with a traditional website redesign, and ensures that your next website will be connected to — and help drive — results.

This approach to design fundamentally starts with an initial version of your new website, and layers in testing and heatmapping. This allows you to quickly iterate from the feedback you are receiving. For example, let’s say you’re a software business looking to drive trials of your product through your homepage CTA. To get the best results, you could test CTA colors, location, size, and so on, and make a design decision based on the results. 

In other words, your redesign will truly never be complete. Instead, you’ll be continuously iterating based on data from visitors to ensure that you’re delivering the best experience possible. Pretty cool, right? (Learn more about Growth-Driven Design (GDD) here.)

When did you last redesign your website? When are you planning to redesign your website next? Let us know in the comment section below.

As marketers, the gospel of “value” is drilled into our heads before we write our first blog post. Providing value to site visitors, prospects, and customers is the cornerstone of inbound marketing, but it’s easy to forget about transactional emails.

As consumers, we receive transactional emails constantly, and frequently read and interact with them, so why are they ignored by so many inbound marketers? While promotional emails seem to drive the most traffic and results, odds are you are missing out on a great opportunity to improve your transactional emails by making them more personal.

Wait, what are transactional emails?

Most marketing emails are either promotional or transactional. Promotional emails are usually tied to specific campaign goals and are custom built for targeted delivery to promote a specific product or service from your company. For a B2B company, a promotional email could share a new ebook you’ve written or service you’re offering. For B2C ecommerce companies, a promotional email could be announcing a sale or new product line.

Transactional emails are received automatically after certain events through your site. Emails like order confirmations, shipping notifications, password recovery, and event reminders are all examples of transactional emails. We all receive plenty of these types of email, and it’s easy to overlook how integral they are to a great user experience and how making them more personal can go a long way towards retaining current customers and gaining new ones.

Shouldn’t I spend my time on my promotional emails?

While you may be tempted to focus all your energy on your promotional emails, the fact is that transactional emails are always going to get opened more. From Experian’s Transactional Email Report: 

“Customers engage with transactional emails such as order, shipping and return/ exchange notifications at a much higher rate than they do with promotional and branding-focused campaigns. It is clear from the total open rates that customers open transactional emails repeatedly. The exceptionally high open and click rates underscore the opportunity for companies to cross-sell products and services to highly engaged customers through transactional emails.”

When you order something from Amazon, you might open your confirmation email a dozen times while it’s being shipped to check on its progress. Just think about the opportunity that level of open rates and interaction gives you to provide personalized value to the reader.

While promotional emails are great to jumpstart interest in something new from your company, because people are expecting transactional emails after they sign up/order/request something, they are much more likely to open them, giving you a great chance to optimize and improve that experience. 

So what are those seven tips to make my transactional email more personal?

1) Actually personalize the email

That means it includes the recipient’s name. It’ll help your email actually get delivered, and who doesn’t like seeing their name? If you’re sending an eCommerce email, it’s easy to get the name dropped in from the order. If you’re sending a B2B automated email, make sure your submission form is capturing the full name and adding it to the email. 

If you’re sending an ecommerce email, make sure the sender name is your brand, and it’s from an email that people can reply to and ask any questions about their order. For a B2B email, send it from a real name and an email address with a real name. People are much more likely to interact with an email that seems like it’s from a person than a bland “marketing@abccompany.com” type of email.

2) Provide custom suggestions for next steps

We’ve all seen this from Amazon, where they suggest other products you might like based on what you just purchased. This is an easier task to accomplish for ecommerce transactional emails, where you have more data on who the purchaser is and what they might also be interested in.

For B2B emails, every single one doesn’t have to be uniquely customized but treat each email like your drip campaigns. Give the reader a blog to read and share, give someone a primer if they just signed up for your service, or offer a consultation if they just downloaded some information on your product. This can take some A/B testing to get right, so be willing to revisit your email and tweak it down the road.

3) Make sure the reader knows they can reply to your email

It’s always so disappointing to see B2B emails from a “no-reply” where they want you to take extra steps to get in touch with the person or company who sent the email. It’s like they don’t want your business!

Make sure people have no hoops to jump through if they want to ask you questions or get more information. If you are sending an ecommerce transactional email, it’s okay to want to keep those organized and not all replied to, just make sure to provide a nice obvious call-to-action where people can check on their order, read FAQs, or get in contact with customer support.

4) Give people the info they are looking for

You’ve got access to the traffic certain pages on your website get, so use it! Don’t make people search around through your site after they’ve received an email when you can see what they are likely to want to know.

It’s easy to include an email footer with quick links to the pages people are likely to need, or to place big, bold, calls-to-action that address their most likely needs based on the type of email they are receiving. Being proactive and anticipating what your reader is going to need is a great way to provide personalized value.

5) Make it fun

So many transactional emails are very dry and boring, but you can provide a dash of brand personality that will help people connect with your company, product, or service. Don’t sacrifice the value you just spent time providing, but you don’t want to waste a great opportunity to tell your brand story, even if it’s just through your template design and a couple sentences. One of my favorite examples is from Seamless, a staple food delivery app here in New York City:

I appreciate that they assume I am doing something interesting and awesome and not just binging House of Cards on Netflix. It’s simple but fun and gives you all the information you need while having a little personality.

6) Consider new types of transactional emails

While many transactional emails are passive responses to some interaction a user is making, you should also consider how you can use transactional email to reach people based on what interactions they aren’t making.  Different user behaviors (or lack thereof) give you the opportunity to reach out to them with a whole new transactional email style, not reacting to anything other than their lack of engagement. 

These types of triggered transactional emails can do very well, and it’s worth testing out. Obviously, there’s a limit to the number of emails you should be sending people, and triggering an email because someone hasn’t logged onto your app in a week may say more about your app than their usage. But finding non-intrusive ways to reengage users with quality content that is relevant to what they’ve been interested in before can be a good personal use of transactional email that can bring people back into the fold.

7) Write right

Sometimes it’s easy to think that copywriting is something for advertising and not marketing, but taking a good hard look at what you’re saying and how you’re saying it in your emails can reap rewards. Consider how your brand is viewed by your customers. Don’t make your emails too formal if you are a casual company, and don’t use overly familiar copy when you’re providing professional services. 

This ties back into who you are saying the email is from. If it’s from your company, that doesn’t mean it has to read like it’s from your company, but it should mirror the copy you promote through your other emails, your social media, and your website. If your email says it’s from a real person with a real name, experiment with the copy and see if a more relaxed copy style can make it more relatable and create more clicks.

Don’t write another robotic email that you yourself wouldn’t read. Think about what value you can bring through your copywriting and how you can make your email more personal through the tone and style of your writing.

Okay, so what’s a good transactional email look like?

Glad you asked.

This Amazon email hits almost all the criteria you want in a transactional email: personalized to me, gives me big CTAs to check my shipping and order info, and provides suggestions based on what I ordered. I opened the email and clicked through several times, so by providing a good transactional email, Amazon maximized the potential they had to connect with me.

Because you don’t know how much your ride-share trip with Uber is going to cost, their transactional emails are incredibly important and specific, breaking down the cost, mileage, route, and total time for you. Asking for a rating could be a little larger, but they ask you to do that before you take your next ride through the app, so that’s acceptable. 

Anything else?

That’s it! I definitely encourage you to dig in on your automated transactional emails with a critical eye and find areas to improve. While marketing automation platforms like HubSpot have great emails to begin with, I guarantee there are ways you can make them more personalized that result in better open rates, more click-throughs, happier customers, and more business. Transactional emails don’t get a lot of attention, but by making them more personalized, you’ll improve your connection with the reader. 

We are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to buying behavior. We know the location of our favorite products in the store, and we trust that they’ll work year after year. In fact, research shows Americans buy the same 150 items, which accounts for 85% of household needs. 

People don’t like change. It’s a battle to get someone to switch to an unknown brand.

When a client wants to launch a new product, get into a different market, or open a new store location, the odds are stacked against him. Consider this: Only 3% of consumer packaged goods exceed the sales goal benchmark of a successful launch.

Check out HubSpot Research here for even more market research resources.

In part, we can blame lack of research for why there are so many unsuccessful product launches and ill-conceived new feature additions. Founders and brand managers “know” it will be successful — they run on their instincts, not the facts. (It was this instinct that led Clairol to release Touch of Yogurt Shampoo, which some people thought was a breakfast food option.)

Finding out if a product will be successful beyond the initial curiosity is just good business. With market research, you determine if the opportunity exists, how to position the product or service, or what consumers’ opinions are after the launch. 

If you’re sensitive to the high costs of failure and need to gather facts and opinions to predict whether your new product, feature, or location will be successful, start by investing in market research using these tools and resources. 

17 Helpful Market Research Tools & Resources

1) Think With Google: Marketer’s Almanac

Price: Free

Wish you had information on how consumer behavior changes in relation to the seasons, holidays, and other special events? Think With Google’s Marketer’s Almanac offers interesting insights on how people browse and buy.

2) American Fact Finder

Price: Free

American Fact Finder is a resource for searching U.S. census data. You can filter by age, income, year, race, and location.

3) County Business Patterns

Price: Free

County Business Patterns provides information on the areas of the country with large numbers of certain types of businesses. 

4) Business Dynamics Statistics

Price: Free

Business Dynamics Statistics takes census data and allows you see economic data on job creation, startups and shutdowns, business openings, expansions, and closures. 

5) FedStats

Price: Free

FedStats provides an up-to-date forum for finding data released by federal agencies, including agriculture, education, transportation, and energy. 

6) Nielsen MyBestSegments

Price: Free

Nielsen’s MyBestSegments provides researchers with tools to understand an area’s demographic information and lifestyle habits. You can find out which areas would be most receptive to a campaign or launch, which competitors are located nearby, and trends in the area that have shifted. 

7) SurveyMonkey

Price: Free for Basic, $26/month for Select, $25/month for Gold, $85/month (per user) for Platinum

SurveyMonkey is a powerful tool for creating in-depth surveys that will help you understand the market and consumer preferences. (Learn more about crafting a survey for market research here.)

8) Typeform

Price: Free for Basic, $35/month for Pro, $70/month for Pro+

Typeform shows viewers one form field at a time, and you can include multiple choice image options. It’s an easy-to-use, mobile-optimized form-builder that’s great for gathering feedback. 

9) Survata

Price: $1/respondent for Basic, $2.50/respondent for Extended

Survata is another form-building option, but you can determine a target audience. It also employs people who will review your survey questions, so even if you are not a trained market researcher, you can get quality, actionable answers.

10) Loop11

Price: $158/month for Micro, $410/month for SMB, $825/month for Enterprise

Loop11 is a usability testing service that allows you to test even your competitors’ websites — any webpage, basically. You can create a form and recruit people to take the test through your own website or by using a partner service, such as Cint.

11) Userlytics

Price: Variable (starts at $2,900/year for one session)

Userlytics provides a platform for doing user testing of mobile apps, videos, display ads, and more. It performs both a webcam and a screen recording, and you can compare the user answers with their reactions on video to understand how people are really interacting with your creative. 

12) Temper

Price: $12/month for Hobby, $49/month for Pro, $89/month for Business, $199/month for White Label

Sometimes you need a no-frills test to take the pulse of consumers. Temper allows you to add a question, grab a snippet of code, and pop it onto your website. The smiley face, “meh” face, and frown face make it easy for viewers to make a snap judgment.

13) MakeMyPersona

Price: Free

The MakeMyPersona tool is an interactive web tool that generates buyer personas for you once you answer a series of questions about your ideal customers. The tool provides plenty of guidance throughout the process, making it really easy for you to sort through the information you have about your ideal audience. 

14) Ubersuggest

Price: Free

Ubersuggest is a simple tool for doing keyword and content research. You can input a phrase, and it’ll spit out a long, alphabetized list of additional keywords.

15) Pew Research Center

Price: Free

From economic conditions, to political attitudes, to social media usage, the Pew Research Center website has a ton of free research that you can use to better understand your target market. Best of all, the site has a sleek UI and interactive charts that reveal more granular data as you hover over certain elements.

16) Social Mention

Price: Free

Social Mention is a real-time social media search engine that can help you understand what your prospective customers are buzzing about online. Search for a keyword, and Social Mention will show you recent social posts that contain that keyword, along with a list of related keywords and other insights.

17) HubSpot Research

Price: Free

Want to see how website traffic varies by industry, or how effective advertising is in different regions around the world? HubSpot Research has got you covered. In addition to checking out our free research reports, you can use HubSpot Research’s  presentation-builder tool to easily compile stats and charts into a customized slide deck.

This post originally appeared on Agency Post in March 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

What are your favorite tools for market research? Share them with us in the comments below!

Often times, the greatest challenge marketers face when creating content isn’t the actual writing, publishing, or promoting. Instead, it’s the other related tasks — brainstorming, scheduling, and coordinating moving parts — that proves difficult.

This is where tools like Trello come in.

We’ve talked about Trello before, like in this post on tools to help you organize, develop, and share your ideas (see #3). And why shouldn’t we? Here at HubSpot, all different teams have used it for years for everything from project management to our blog’s editorial calendar. It’s worked very well for us, and we want to share the love.

There are a ton of different ways you and your team can use Trello for work, and what works for you may not work for others, and vice versa. That’s why we’ve rounded up eight useful ways to organize your Trello board. 

What is Trello?

Trello is a well-known app that’s especially good for tracking and visualizing progress. Using their card-based layout, you can create a card for every idea, blog posts, piece of a project, and so on. Then, within each of these cards, you can jot notes, assign them to others, organize them into categories or lists, create task lists and checklists within cards, color-code them, attach files … the list goes on.

While boards can be organized in many ways, here’s an example of what one looks like:

Image Credit: Trello

Once you click into one of those cards, you can label them, add a due date, add “members” to the card to assign tasks, and so on.

Image Credit: Trello

Another great feature? The calendar. If you enable the free calendar “power-up” (much like Labs in Gmail), then you’ll be able to assign everything in a calendar view that makes organizing due dates much easier. (To learn more about Trello’s capabilities, you can take the tour here.)

For now, let’s move on to some different ways you can structure your Trello board.

8 Creative Ways to Manage Your Tasks & Projects Using Trello Boards

1) Organize Your Personal To-Do List

There are a lot of great tools out there to help you manage your personal to-do list. If you tend to be a more visual person, Trello could be a great choice for you.

Why? Because it lets you drag, drop, color-code, and manipulate to-do list items in a way that many of the other tools don’t. For your day-to-day list items, you might keep different lists for projects assigned to you by different clients. Or, you could organize them based on priority, as in the example below:

Image Credit: Cloud Coach

For all you bloggers out there, I use the drag-and-drop feature to track blog post ideas and progress. To do this, I named columns things like, “Idea Backlog,” “In Queue,” “Research/Interview Stage,” “Draft in Progress,” “In Editorial,” “Scheduled,” and “Published.” (Okay fine, the real name of last column was “DUNZO.” To each her own.)

If you’re hoping to access your to-do list from your mobile devices, Trello has apps you can download for iPhone, iPad, Android phones, tablets, watches, and Kindle Fire tablets.

2) Manage an Ongoing Project

Trello markets itself as a collaboration tool — and that’s probably what it’s best for. If you’re managing a project, it’s an awesome tool for organizing all the moving parts of a project, including people, due dates, and progress tracking.

In Trello’s extensive free product, you can invite as many people as you want to your board. To divvy up tasks, all you have to do is add members or drag-and-drop people to cards. Everyone can see the whole board, but folks who are added to cards will be notified of their assignment.

Image Credit: Trello

You can also start discussions using comments and attachments within each card. So if you want to add a quick note (or a not-so-quick note), then you can write ’em in there — and even mention another member to make sure they get notified. Add files by uploading them from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive.

Plus, Trello works in real-time — so when someone moves a card, it’ll move on your own board instantly. This means you never have to refresh your browser to see the latest updates.

If the project’s top secret, all you have to do is put the project’s “board” on private. All the information and data you put on there is guaranteed private and secure — and the folks at Trello keep encrypted, off-site backups of all the data in case something crazy happens.

3) Reflect on Lessons Learned

Once a project — or even a week at work — is finished, you and your team can always benefit from reflecting on what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what you can do to improve the process going forward. This is sometimes called a “retrospective.” It’s all in the name of continuous improvement.

While many people choose to take notes during these retrospective meetings using a good ol’ whiteboard, Trello can actually be a great digital tool that’ll eliminate the need to type up and send out disjointed notes later. It’s also convenient for folks who have remote teams in different cities and time zones because it allows you to make the feedback visible to everyone, at any time.

That’s exactly why Mitchel Seaman used Trello for retrospective meetings for his remote team, which he wrote about in this post on Medium.

Image Credit: Mitchel Seaman

His system involves voting: Throughout the week, members of the team can go into the board and post cards denoting what’s going well and what’s going poorly as it happens. Then, folks can go in and vote on things to talk about during a weekly retrospective meeting, discuss them, and keep track of action items.

While Trello does have a voting feature (which you can enable by going to Menu > Power Ups > Voting), it requires people to click into a card, and then click the Vote button. To make it so folks don’t have to click into a card, Seaman uses stickers instead — which, he says, also makes it “way more fun.”

Image Credit: Mitchel Seaman

Before the meeting, whoever’s running it will drag the top-voted items to the top of each list. During the meeting, each top-voted item is discussed one-by-one. Cards that are actionable can be moved to the “Action Items” column. That “Action Items” column never moves, and you can even assign people to it and give due dates.

Once the meeting’s over, the lists are archived and a new one is created for the coming week. (Note: Even when you archive a list, it’s not gone forever. You can still search for items within it and retrieve entire old lists when you want to.) You can read the whole article here.

4) Brainstorm Ideas

Coming up with fresh, new ideas isn’t easy. And even if you take the time to brainstorm, it can be tough to get started. Where do you begin? How do you create enough ideas? How do you sort the great from the good from the bad when you’re done?

Trello just so happens to be a great tool to help you brainstorm — and then organize your ideas once the brainstorm is over. Using their card-based layout, you can create a card for every idea and even jot additional notes in there, attach files, and so on. 

Once the brainstorm is over, you can color-code them based on priority, like using green for high priority, yellow for medium priority, and red for low priority. If you want to use that board to assign topics to content creators, you can add members to each card to assign it to them — and attach due dates, too.

5) Keep an Editorial Calendar

Your blogging team could be one person, it could involve tens of contributors, or it could be somewhere in between. No matter how many people are writing for your blog, it’s crucial to have an editorial calendar to keep track of which blog posts you plan to publish when. 

In fact, here at HubSpot, we use Trello (among other tools, like Google Calendar and HubSpot’s built-in content calendar) to organize our own blog’s editorial calendar. And we aren’t the only ones — news sites like Mashable, ReadWrite, and The Changelog use Trello as an editorial calendar, too, according to Trello’s blog.

You can create a Trello board for your editorial calendar in several ones. One way is to create columns based on a single post’s progress, like in the example below:

In this example, each card represents a single blog post, and you can move it along the progress bar by moving it from “Article Ideas” to “Researching” to “On Hold” to “Writing” to “Editing and Graphics” — all the way to when it’s published. While it’s in progress, you can add notes into each card, assign writers by adding members, and so on, until it reaches that “Published” list.

Another way to organize blog posts for your calendar is by creating columns based on post type. If this is the way you like to brainstorm your blog posts, you can simply brainstorm in the Trello board, assign writers and add notes as needed, and use the “Calendar” feature to plan out the actual editorial calendar.

To add the “Calendar” feature, simply go to Menu > Power Ups > Enable Calendar.

Image Credit: Trello

Once you’ve enabled the calendar, you can view it by clicking the “Calendar” link in the top right of your board.

Image Credit: Trello

If you want to use an editorial calendar, but would rather not use Trello, download our free editorial calendar templates here.

6) Plan a Promotion or Launch

A lot of moving parts go into launching a new marketing campaign, and usually, a lot of people are involved — sometimes from different teams and even different time zones. If you’re not totally organized for the launch, this means a lot of opportunities for things to slip through the cracks.

Trello is really good for keeping track of all those moving parts for a launch. When you create a new board for your promotional plan, you can create lists to categorize each part of the plan. Then, you can put cards under those lists and fill them in with things like blog posts, kickback emails, creating click-to-tweets, and so on.

You can label each of these cards “Pre-Launch,” “Launch Day,” or “Post-Launch,” add members, set due dates, and use the notes within each card to give details, update members of your team, start discussions, and so on. It’s a great way to keep track of what’s going out when, and who’s responsible for it.

7) Do User Research

If you’ve done user research before, you know that all those user interviews usually end up in a series of unorganized notes that are tedious to sift through, organize, and find patterns in later. One innovative way to organize these notes and find those patterns faster is by using Trello. 

I can’t take credit for this idea: I came across this post on Medium from David Ghent, a product designer at Pivotal Labs. Ghent uses Trello to synthesize user research and minimize the time spent organizing Post-It notes onto a board. If you use Trello cards instead of Post-It notes, he says, you’ll come out with a digital version of your user research that’ll make skimming, referencing, and sharing your learnings later much easier.

Here’s what it looks like. (You can see the larger version by opening the full article.)

Image Credit: Product Labs on Medium

The process starts with setting up a Trello board before your very first user interview. The first column will be your list of users, and you’ll attach a specific color to each user. That color will be used to mark their comments throughout the board.

Then, you’ll label each column based on your area of focus. “If it’s an interaction test, each new column title can be ‘Page X,'” he writes. “If you’re at more of a generative stage, then each column could be titled ‘Stage X Behaviors,’ and so on.”

When you get into your interviews, you’ll type notes directly into cards on the Trello board (under the right column if you can, although you can always do it later) — with the right color label added to show which user said it.

After each interview, you can sort your notes into the correct columns. As you do this with more and more interviews, you can start grouping commonalities by dragging the different cards into the same columns.

“You’ll start to see stacks of cards with multiple color labels show up in the same spot. Viola! Patterns.” You can read the whole article here.

8) Organize a Scrum or Sprint

If your team operates using the sprint or Scrum philosophy, Trello is a pretty decent free option to help you and your team move through tasks more quickly with greater agility. (Learn more about the Scrum philosophy here.)

The team over at internet marketing agency The Magistrate uses Trello to organize their Scrum workflow better and faster. To make Trello work for the Scrum, they create one board per client, which they share with that client.

Then, they use the same, general framework to start off each project. The framework consists of six columns: “Resources,” “Sprint Planning,” “Current Sprint,” “Blocked,” “QA,” and “Done.” Here’s what it looks like:

What do each of these columns mean, exactly? Here’s how they define it, according to their blog:

• Resources: Assets that will be used in the execution of client deliverables/tasks. As well, we will store our recurring items in the resources list. Recurring items may be assigned a due date.
• Sprint Planning: This is the column where we all begin planning for the next sprint* without interfering with current sprint activities. More detail can be gathered and applied and projects can be broken down into their final, pre-sprint format. Sprint planning items will be sorted in two ways: 1) From top to bottom, highest priority to lowest. 2) By color. Green = Approved, which means planned and ready for an upcoming sprint. I will explain Trello labels soon.
• Current Sprint: The Current Sprint is the work that needs to be done right now, or by the end of the sprint, which for us runs 7 days from start to finish, Friday to Thursday.
• Blocked: Some force (external usually) has made it impossible to continue with this task. We will move it into blocked, until the blockade has been lifted, or the next sprint.
• QA: Quality assurance (sometimes called QC or Quality Check). Once the task has been completed, the card will be dragged from current sprint to QA. It will be reviewed, and dragged to done when confirmed indeed done.
• Done: Done means delivered and working (bug free, ideally). If it were a car, it would be ready for driving. Be strict about this.

Here’s a video to show you what it looks like in action:

They also share their Trello boards with their clients to hold themselves more accountable while encouraging transparency.

“Together, Trello and the Scrum framework help our internet marketing agency stay organized, and provide a level of transparency and accountability to our clients that I haven’t seen anywhere,” CEO Adam Steele told Trello.

How do you use Trello to organize yourself or your team? Share with us in the comments.

If you’ve ever tried to recite a speech entirely from memory, you’ve likely discovered that it’s no easy task. And it’s not just the sheer brainpower required to memorize a speech you’ve written ahead of time that makes it difficult — having to recall that speech in front of a live audience adds a further level of complexity.

Fortunately, the following infographic walks you through the process of memorizing a speech, step by step. 

Instead of having you memorize text verbatim, the infographic shows how you can use visualization techniques to organize different sections of your speech in your memory. The infographic also offers several tips and tricks for boosting your memory, from eating foods rich in fatty acids, to taking naps.

Know of any other tips for memorizing speeches? Share them in the comments section below.

 Whether or not you use it, we’ve all heard of Snapchat. And regardless of your preconceived notions about it, this photo/video sharing app has quickly become popular with adults over the last year, making it a serious contender in the social media world. Snapchat is no longer just for teens, but for moms too! So how can marketers take advantage of this increasingly mainstream tool?

The Scoop on Snapchat

When it was initially released in 2011, Snapchat was an instant favorite among teenagers, largely due to the fact that content would disappear after being viewable for only a brief amount of time.

Basically, you communicate in real time by taking a picture or short video (called a “snap”), adding a quick caption, and sending it to people who are connected to your Snapchat account. The snap is available for viewing for only a few seconds after it is opened and then it disappears.

You can also create a “story”, which strings all your snaps together and allows them to be viewed by any of your Snapchat connections for 24 hours. To connect with someone on Snapchat outside of your phone contacts, you have to look them up by their username, Snapcode or QR code.

Snapchat Doesn’t Keep Score

Snapchat is stripped down social media and is all about living in the moment and sharing authentic experiences.Their photo effects aren’t made to give a “professional” look to your images, like on Instagram. There’s no editing, like on Facebook. There’s no popularity contest for who has the most Snapchat friends. There’s no keeping score. Period.

Life on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, for example, tends to be more about the rush of scoring likes and comments. Many Instagram and Facebook users even view these things as a barometer of popularity and self-worth. Many users will create content designed for the sole purpose of collecting “likes”, and delete posts that haven’t drawn enough attention.

Those who follow you on Snapchat can view your snaps and stories, but there’s no option to “like”, comment, or share them. That takes a tremendous amount of pressure off of users to create content that will receive a lot of “likes” versus creating content that is authentic. Society in general could take a cue from Snapchat’s stripped down approach. Marketers should follow this same philosophy in creating authentic content and not just focusing on the popular vote.

Discover – Marketing on Snapchat

Unlike Facebook, you can’t pay for ads to pop up on a news feed in Snapchat, because there is no news feed. If you want to see what someone is up to, you have to follow them. Which means that anyone following you actually cares about what you have to say.

Snapchat’s current large scale marketing opportunities appear in the form of an online magazine layout in the Discover channel feature. Discover channels allow select publishers to have a permanent place on Snapchat where they can post content from various sources, use a mix of text and photos, and long or short form videos. These publishers can then include some advertising snaps in the middle of their stories.

When this feature launched a year ago, there were only eleven channel partners (CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network, National Geographic, People, Vice, Yahoo News and Warner Music). That number has now more than doubled to twenty-one channels, and will no doubt continue to grow.

While Discover partners is an exclusive club limited to high-traffic media companies, all marketers should take note on the creative concepts being used on these channels. Any person or business can create a SnapChat account (like Audi, GrubHub< and even the White House), but you need to generate creative and interesting content in order to gain more followers. Your audience may not yet be as broad as it is on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, but you will know they are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

How Do You Get Started on Snapchat?

Signing-up for a Snapchat account is not much different from setting up any other social media account. You’ll need to provide an email address and birthdate for your company (make it over 18 so you don’t end up classified as a child). You’ll be asked for a phone number, but you can skip over that.

Be sure to keep all of your social media branding in sync so that users can easily find you across all of the social channels. 20th Century Fox is an example of what NOT to do when setting up your SnapChat account. If you went to look them up on Snapchat as “20thcenturyfox”, which is how they are listed on Twitter, you wouldn’t get a match. No suggestions will appear at all. That’s because their Snapchat account is FoxMovies. So if your business is already listed as ClearPivot on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, then it’s wise to also use the ClearPivot name on Snapchat.

What Should You Post?

After you setup your Snapchat account, practice posting some snaps to get used to capturing experiences while you’re in the moment. Remember, Snapchat users like authentic content and the interaction is all about sharing experiences. Also, be sure to post often since content disappears after a brief amount of time.

If you really want to increase the human connection between the company and its audience, have one employee take over the company Snapchat account every day and make a story about their day. Having a different employee do this every day will show the personalities of the people behind the company, and further strengthen your relationship with your Snapchat connections.

Tidbits for Specific Industries

Cosmetic Companies

Snapchat has a very useful timelapse and fast forward feature, which would be great for how-to stories. This would be a very effective way to showcase a new product and how to best use it. Also, every makeup wearing woman loves tips on how to apply makeup like the pros. You could have a different story everyday on how to properly apply lip liner, mascara, brow liner, eye shadow etc. Stories on how best to store, care for, and replace makeup would a hit as well.

Hardware or Craft Stores

Customers of these businesses tend to be do-it-yourselfers, so what better way to connect with these users than with a DIY story. Home improvement stories can range from large construction projects, like building a deck, landscaping, or finishing your basement, to smaller projects such as replacing a light switch, installing cabinet hardware, or which light bulbs are the most energy efficient. Craft DIY stories can also have a variety ranging from quilting to scrapbooking, or anything in between. The sky’s the limit with DIY stories.

Local Coffee Shops/Bars/Boutiques

These types of businesses tend to host frequent events that appeal to those within their community. Wouldn’t it be great to post live snaps from the event to draw more interest from those who perhaps didn’t know about it or forgot to mark the event on their calendar? Since these businesses are local, a user could see your snap from the event and drop in to check it out before the fun ends.

Don’t Miss Out on the Next “Big One”

The full marketing potential of Snapchat remains widely untapped. That could change very quickly this year. Gary Vaynerchuk declared that 2016 is the year for Snapchat:

“…if you’re running a business in 2016, you need to be thinking about Snapchat as a channel to grow your customer base. Period… I haven’t seen this much consumer attention on one social platform since early 2007 and 2008 with Twitter.”

The millennial generation makes up the majority of the workforce in America and are quickly taking over the world of business. They are increasingly not tuning in to traditional media like broadcast TV and print newspapers.. The most effective resource to reach this prime target audience is through social media, and more importantly right now – Snapchat!

“Do you have any questions for me?”

We’ve all been on the receiving end of that question in an interview. If you’re prepared, you’ve probably got some good questions you usually cycle through.

But we want to be better than “good” in an interview. We want to be standout candidates that hiring managers are excited to extend an offer to.

One thing you can do to separate yourself from other applicants? Ask good questions. 

Download our free resume templates here to help you create a standout resume.  

“I’m always surprised at the lack of good questions candidates have, and I always respect the candidates that ask insightful questions during interviews,” says Andrew Quinn, director of training and development at HubSpot.

To help you prepare to stand out at your next interview, here are some questions that’ll make hiring managers’ ears perk up. Try them at your next interview and see how the conversation changes.

14 Questions Hiring Managers Wish You’d Ask During Job Interviews

1) How does this role contribute to larger company goals?

It’s not terribly difficult to find a candidate that can execute on a role. It is terribly difficult to find a candidate that can not only execute on their role, but also understand how it fits into larger goals. This includes being able to self-manage, prioritize high-value activities, and grow their role in a direction that aligns with the company’s growth. 

How It Helps You

This information can be hard to come by if your company isn’t very communicative or transparent, so this is a good chance to get that information while the gettin’s good, and use it to guide your decisions if you land the role.

2) What do the most successful new hires do in their first month here?

This question shows that you’re the type of person who likes to hit the ground running, instead of spending a week filling out HR forms. It also shows that you recognize patterns of success and want to replicate only the most effective performers.

How It Helps You

Every company has its weird nuances, its own environment, and its own unspoken expectations. This helps you start with a little bit of the insider info so you don’t suffer a case of “if I knew then what I knew now” in six months.

3) What metrics would you use to measure success in this role?

Asking a question like this shows that you’re goal-oriented and aren’t afraid to be held accountable for those goals. You don’t shirk accountability. You welcome it — and will work hard to hit the goals you’re responsible for.

How It Helps You

It’s shocking how many people don’t actually know what they want from their employees beyond a vague idea of some work that needs to get done. Asking this question will force a hiring manager to figure it out — and then can communicate it to you, so you can execute on it.

4) What are some of the challenges or roadblocks one might come up against in this role?

A question like this indicates that you’re already envisioning yourself in the role and thinking through a plan of attack, should you land the gig. It’s also a sign that you’re well aware that no job comes free of roadblocks. It shows that not only are you not afraid to deal with those challenges, but you’re also prepared for them.

How It Helps You

The response you receive should help you better understand some of the less-than-ideal aspects of the job — difficult colleagues, bureaucratic processes, internal politics, and so on. You can use that information to decide that the role really isn’t a good fit for you … or that you’re up for the challenge.

5) What is the biggest challenge the team has faced in the past year?

While the interviewer might be trying to paint a pretty perfect picture of what working on the team might look like, asking this question will help you uncover some of the realities the team has been facing recently. If you end up joining, you’ll inevitably hear about these challenges — and you may have to help solve them, too. This is a question our senior sales recruiter Katie Donohue says she likes to get during interviews.

How It Helps You

It really helps to know what challenges you could find yourself or your team up against ahead of time. In some cases, it could affect whether you accept the role. Not only that, but learning about these challenges could give you some great insights into the steps the team has taken to overcome these challenges already.

6) Why did you decide to work at this company?

This question gives an interviewer a chance to do two self-serving things: talk about themselves and perform a no-holds-barred sales pitch on the company. For promising candidates, the sales opportunity is welcomed. And most people love any excuse to talk about themselves. 😉

How It Helps You

This gives you insight into what motivates your future colleague or manager, as well as insight into what the company offers its employees. If those all line up with what you’re looking for in a job, you’ve got yourself a good fit.

7) You’ve been at this company for while. What keeps you motivated?

If your interviewer has been at the company for several years, understanding why could give you some really interesting insight into the company, how it treats its employees, and a taste of what motivates the people who work there. Plus, it shows you’ve done your research on the interviewer, which is always an impressive sign.

How It Helps You

Depending on the interviewer’s answer, you might learn something about the company’s career training, leadership opportunities, workplace flexibility, internal job opportunities, and more. You might dig a little deeper by following up with related questions, like, “What do you enjoy most about working here?”

8) Where do people usually eat lunch?

Do they take the time to go out? Do people bring lunch but eat in groups? Do folks normally eat at their desks because they’re too busy to socialize? Asking this question serves as a great way to find out a little bit about the company culture. Plus, this is a more lighthearted question that might relax a stiffened atmosphere or lead to a conversation about shared interests.

How It Helps You

Along with learning about company culture, it doesn’t hurt to get a few good lunch suggestions for the future.

9) What is your company’s customer or client service philosophy?

This is an impressive question because it shows that you can make the connection between how the company thinks about its customers and the end result. In other words, how the customer is treated on a day-to-day basis, and in turn, how that shows up in the product. 

How It Helps You

While you might be able to find a canned response to this question on the company’s website, it’ll be useful — and possibly eye-opening — for you to hear it more candidly from an employee. How the company treats its customers could end up informing your decision to join if you are offered the job, especially if you’re applying for a job where you’ll be communicating directly with customers.

10) What are some of the less tangible traits of successful people at this company? 

Ever work with people that just get it? That’s who hiring managers are looking for. This question demonstrates that you understand a job is about more than just going through the motions. Successful people have a specific frame of mind, approach, attitude, work ethic, communication style, and so on — and you want to know what that mix looks like at this company.

How It Helps You

Because these characteristics are often hard to pin down, this question forces a hiring manager to articulate that “it factor” they’re really looking for — even if it wasn’t written in the job description.

11) What behaviors does the most successful member of the team exhibit? Please give me an example.

Asking a question like this shows you’re interested in getting a practical example of what success looks like to the manager of the team you’d be joining. Plus, when you phrase the question in this way, “you leave no room for a hypothetical answer,” says Dave Fernandez, a recruiting team lead here at HubSpot. Instead, you’re pushing the hiring manager to think about their top performer.

How It Helps You

Because this question forces an example, the answer to this question will give you a strong idea of what success actually looks like. That way, you’ll learn what it takes to impress your colleagues and be a star candidate.

12) What behaviors does the member who struggles most on the team exhibit? Please give me an example.

Follow question #9 with this question, and you’ll show the hiring manager that you’re really trying to get a concrete idea of what to do and what not to do as an employee on the specific team you’re applying to join, says Fernandez. And while this question can make a manager uncomfortable, it’s impressive because it shows that the candidate is not afraid to ask tough questions.

How It Helps You

First, you’ll get an idea of what poor performance looks like, which will help you set expectations for the position. Second, you’ll learn how the hiring manager handles a tough question like this — which can teach you something about how office politics are handled in general.

13) How do you deliver negative feedback?

If you would be working with the person interviewing you, this is another tough question that can give you some insight into how the team works. It pushes the hiring manager to think about how he or she would handle an uneasy situation, while at the same time showing your level of maturity in that that you (realistically) expect to receive tough feedback sometimes.

How It Helps You

Just like different people take negative feedback differently, different people give negative feedback differently. Does this person tailor their feedback approach depending on whom they’re giving feedback to? Do they make feedback a two-way street? Their feedback style — especially when it comes to negative feedback — will help you understand how well you would be able to work with them.

14) Do you have any questions or concerns about my qualifications?

This question shows that you’re not afraid of critical feedback — in fact, you welcome it. Interviewers tend to make note of red flags — whether it be something on your resume or something you said — to discuss with a colleague following the interview. This question gives them the green light to ask about any of the things that are holding them back from being 100% on board with hiring you.

How It Helps You

You get a chance to address concerns face-to-face without being too confrontational. This could be the difference between an offer and a rejection — or maybe even a higher opening offer.

Please share some other interview questions you like to hear as a hiring manager in the comments, and explain why it’s so helpful or encouraging to hear from a candidate.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Not sure if video marketing is worth your time? Here’s an eye-opening statistic for you: According to Aberdeen, businesses that use video grow revenue 49% faster year-over-year than businesses that don’t. Still not convinced? Here’s a SlideShare presentation with more stats that illustrate the importance of video.

Of course, even if you are completely sold on the idea of incorporating video into your business’s marketing program, there’s still the issue of actually creating the videos. And in order to do that, you’re going to need some video editing software.

If you have a PC that’s running Microsoft Windows, or an iMac/Macbook, there’s a good chance you already have video editing software installed on your computer. For Windows, that’s Windows Movie Maker, and for Macs, it’s iMovie. However, depending on your particular skill set and/or what it is you’re trying to accomplish with your videos, you may find that the above options are either too complicated or not packed with enough features.

The good news: There are several free video editing solutions you can download that run the gamut from super simple to Hollywood-level powerful.

7 of the Best Pieces of Free Video Editing Software

1) Machete Video Editor Lite (Windows)

(Source: Softonic)

At the simple end of the spectrum is Machete Video Editor Lite, which allows you to cut, copy, and paste different sections of video. As the Machete website puts it, Video Editor Lite was “designed for quick and simple ‘slicing’ of your video files.”

The program’s intuitive interface means you won’t have to waste time shuffling through technical support documents. And because Video Editor Lite doesn’t re-encode your video files when you slice them, you don’t have to worry about losing video quality.

The main downsides to the program? It only supports the AVI and WMV video formats, and it doesn’t allow for audio editing. Still, if you have zero video editing experience and only need to make simple edits, it’s a great option.

2) Avidemux (Windows/Mac/Linux)

(Source: Softonic)

Like Machete Video Editor Lite, Avidemux allows you to do basic video editing (no audio editing) without having to worry about loss of video quality. But Avidemux also has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

For starters, the program supports multiple video formats, including AVI, DVD, MPEG, QuickTime, and MP4. What’s more, Avidemux comes with several filters that allow you to perform a host of different functions, from flipping and rotating clips, to adding subtitles, to adjusting colors and brightness levels.

And while the learning curve for Avidemux is slightly steeper compared to Machete Video Editor Lite, the upside is that there’s an extensive Avidemux wiki that covers everything you need to know.

3) WeVideo (Cloud-based)

(Source: WeVideo)

Cloud-based video editing software (i.e., software that you access via a browser instead of downloading directly to your hard drive) is growing more and more popular. And one of the programs leading the charge is WeVideo.

Compared to the first two programs on this list, WeVideo definitely offers some more advanced features and functionality, including audio editing capabilities and a library of commercially licensed music. However, the free version of WeVideo isn’t without its limitations.

One major downside is that you’re only given 5GB of cloud storage. If you’re making a one-off video, this is fine. But if you’re planning to edit multiple videos you’ll definitely need more space. The free version also puts a WeVideo watermark on your videos, which isn’t ideal.

For a complete breakdown of the differences between WeVideo’s free and paid options, check out their pricing page.

4) VSDC Free Video Editor (Windows)

(Source: Softonic)

In experienced hands, the VSDC Free Video Editor can produce some seriously professional-looking video. In addition to supporting nearly every major video format, the program offers advanced video effects, including object transformation and color correction, as well as advanced audio effects like volume correction and sound normalization. And unlike WeVideo, the VSDC Free Video Editor is truly free. You can use the program’s full feature set without having to deal with pesky watermarks.

But unfortunately, there is one catch. If you want technical support, you need to pay. (And because there is a bit of a learning curve, there’s a good chance you’ll need to.) Support for the VSDC Free Video Editor costs $1 for one month, $5 for half a year, and $10 for a full year.

5) Wondershare Filmora (Windows/Mac)

(Source: Wondershare)

Wondershare Filmora (formerly Wondershare Video Editor) is the perfect option if you want to start out with basic video editing functionality while also having the opportunity to get more advanced as you go.

The program’s “Easy Mode” strips away the complexity so you can drag and drop video clips, choose a pre-designed theme, add some music, and produce a finished video in a matter of minutes. Go into “Full Feature Mode,” however, and you’ll be able to do much, much more — from adding transitions, filters, and overlays, to playing video clips in reverse, to using split-screen effects.

Sound too good to be true? Welp, you’re right: The free version of Wondershare Filmora adds a watermark to your videos that you can only remove through upgrading to their paid service.

6) Blender (Windows/Mac/Linux)

(Source: Blender)

The open source program Blender is more than just a video editor: It’s a full-blown 3D animation suite, which allows for modeling, rendering, motion tracking, and more.

On the video editing side, there are a ton of features, including transitions, speed control, filters, adjustment layers, and more. There are also 32 slots available for adding video clips, audio clips, images, and effects, which means you can produce some incredibly complex video.

For the amateur video editor, all the functionality that’s available can be a bit overwhelming. But if you’re looking to produce truly professional-quality video — without having to deal with watermarks — Blender is a solid option.

7) Lightworks (Windows/Mac/Linux)

(Source: ZDNet)

Like Blender, Lightworks is definitely on the more advanced (and powerful) end of the video editing software spectrum. In fact, it’s a program that’s been used to edit some well-known and award-winning films, including Pulp Fiction, L.A. Confidential, and The King’s Speech.

There are two different licenses you can choose from with Lightworks: “Free” and “Pro.” (The latter of which, as you might have guessed, requires that you pony up some cash.)  The main difference between the two licenses is that the Pro version offers more features, including stereoscopic output and advanced project sharing. But the free version is still quite powerful, providing 100+ effects and supporting multicam editing.

Too see the complete list of differences between Lightworks Free and Pro, check out their “Compare Versions” page.

Know of another great piece of video editing software that’s not on this list? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Ever gotten so “in the zone” at work that you completely lost track of time?

This intense state of concentration is sometimes also called “flow.” Your whole world becomes you and the project you’re working on — and it feels great to emerge from that state after getting a whole lot done in not a lot of time.

If you’re like most people, achieving “flow” only happens every once in a while. In fact, the average office worker gets interrupted from their work every three minutes.

Thankfully, if you combine self-discipline, good habits, and a productive work space, you can retrain yourself to get into a deep state of focus when you really need to. Check out the infographic below from Online Course Report to learn helpful tips on getting “in the zone” and increasing your productivity when it really matters. (Be sure to check out the flowchart in there on whether a meeting is actually worth your time.)

For ecommerce retailers, website security is the cornerstone of a successful online business. Why? It’s simple: people only want to give their money and their business to companies and organizations that they can trust.

If a retailer has an insecure website, then, all other marketing and inbound efforts simply won’t bring results. Here, we run through some basic security practices that all ecommerce retailers should employ to make sure that their website is a secure, successful online destination.

PCI Compliance

The PCI Security Standards Council is a global group — whose founding members include American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard and Visa Inc. — formed to develop, enhance and maintain security standards for payment account security.

Together, the members of this group came up with a set of security requirements, known as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) that all merchants or organizations that process, store, or transmit credit card information must adhere to. There is good reason for this: these guidelines ensure that all stored credit card data is protected and that sensitive information is secure throughout the transaction process.

Many companies meet these guidelines through the use of tokenization:

Tokenization is when sensitive information —such as digits in a credit card number —is replaced by non-sensitive information, or tokens, so that it cannot be read. This is an effective means of encrypting data because it’s extremely secure: the tokenized information can only be detokenized to redeem the sensitive data under strict security controls and the storage of tokens and payment card data must comply with PCI standards, including the use of strong cryptography.

Staying PCI Compliant and ensuring that all stored credit card data is fully tokenized in this way greatly reduces the risk of this sensitive information being stolen and used. Keeping this data secure is extremely important for all online retailers: if cardholder data is stolen, their credit can be negatively affected and they could lose credibility, money, and even their business.

SEE ALSO: Top 5 Considerations for Creating a Successful ecommerce Website 

SSL Certificate

The SSL Certificate — also mandatory per PCI — also works to ensure that the sensitive information that is sent over the internet is encrypted and secure. When retailers or site visitors send information or data over the internet, it gets passed through multiple computers before reaching its destination server. At any point during this chain, it could get stolen if it is not encrypted with an SSL Certificate.

How does the certificate work? It essentially makes all sensitive information —which includes passwords, credit card information, and usernames — unreadable for everyone except the destination server, thereby protecting all communication from eavesdropping and theft.

It is particularly valuable for ecommerce retailers not just for security reasons, but also to build trust with site visitors and prospective customers: attaining an SSL certificate essentially verifies an entity’s credentials, certifying that they are who they say they are and that their site is safe to visit.

Make sure to watch for changes in requirements – such as the recent change from SHA1 encryption to SHA2 encryption – to make sure your company stays compliant.

Use HTTPS

Hypertext Transfer Protocol with Secure Sockets Layer, or HTTPS, is a protocol to transfer data over the web that should be used instead of HTTP on all pages where data is created. Once again, the issue here is all about encryption. With HTTP, information is not encrypted — instead, it is sent as plain text, which means that anyone can intercept it and read what has been sent.

Further, many customers know about this insecurity and tend to avoid ecommerce websites that use HTTP. This means that keeping HTTP could hurt a retailer’s security and their business over time. 

 It’s important to note, though, that HTTPS isn’t necessary on every page of a website. Why? If retailers try to include it everywhere, it will slow their page load speed and likely hurt their business. Instead, HTTPS should just be used on pages that collect and store data so that site visitors customers can feel secure sending their information. That means skip the homepage, about us page, etc. 

DoS and DDOS protection

DoS and DDOS protection work to guard against denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks.

Denial of Service and Distributed denial of service: During both denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, attackers attempt to block legitimate users from accessing information or services by flooding a network with requests, thereby overwhelming the bandwidth of the targeted system and preventing legitimate requests from coming through.

While both attacks work in the same way, the key difference is that a DoS attacker usually uses a single computer and internet connection, while a DDoS attacker uses multiple connected devices, making the flood of information that much larger harder to deflect.

There are many ways to protect from DoS and DDoS attacks. The easiest and most expensive way is to buy more bandwidth. Think about it: during these attacks, they’re trying to flood your space, so if you have a ton of space it will be more difficult for attackers to overwhelm you. However, this is a largely impractical solution -especially for DDoS attacks – since in today’s day and age the attacks are just too large to overcome.

However, there are more inexpensive and effective other ways to mitigate attacks. Setting up effective, well-configured firewalls, for example, can prevent this attack traffic from reaching your computer.

Use a Firewall 

As the name suggests, a firewall is a hardware or software system that essentially works as a wall or gateway between two or more networks, permitting authorized traffic and blocking unauthorized or potentially malicious traffic from accessing a network or system. Like an actual wall.

It essentially protects what is inside a network from the outside — a.k.a from other networks or from threats on the internet like backdoor and DDoS attacks. Since ecommerce websites have a lot of inbound traffic, they need firewalls to protect themselves against malicious entry.

There are many different kinds of firewalls, but two very effective firewalls for online retailers are application gateways and proxy firewalls. Both function as intermediary programs between two or more networks, meaning that incoming traffic has no direct connection or access to a retailer’s network.

Application Gateways

With an application gateway in place, there are two lines of communication: one between your computer and the proxy, then one between the proxy and the destination computer or network. It’s essentially a checkpoint that all network information has to stop at. By serving as this middle point, the application gateways help hide and protect your network from others’, only letting in traffic -or packets -that have been authorized.

Proxy Firewalls

Proxy firewalls are among the most secure. Why? Like the application gateway, the proxy serves as an intermediary connection. However, they take it one step further -instead of your network connection going all the way through, a new network connection is started at the proxy firewall. This means that there is no direct connection between systems at all, which makes it even harder for attackers to discover your network and get in.

It is important to note that, for a firewall to be effective, it has to be properly configured. What does this mean? Well, firewalls don’t automatically know which traffic is malicious — they need to be programmed with this information. Make sure, then, that whoever sets up the firewall is properly configuring it so that all of the right information gets through.

By staying on top of all these security measures, online retailers can effectively build their customers’ trust and their own company’s reputability, taking the first steps to ensuring that they have a successful, long-lasting online presence.