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U.S. and EU Compliance: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
18 Apr 2018

U.S. and EU Compliance: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Do United States (U.S.) based websites need to be GDPR Compliant?

The short answer is YES. Owning, managing and running a website in the United States does not make you exempt to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being enforced in the European Union (EU) starting May 25th 2018. As of that date, anyone doing business with or collecting data from any EU citizen MUST be in compliance with the GDPR. If there is one thing that people know about the GDPR it’s that fines (administrative fines) can go up to €20 million or 4 percent of annual global (note global!) turnover, whichever of both is highest. At the time of this article being written (04-23-2018) €20 million = $24472160.00 USD. At present there are 28 countries in the EU

Understanding as a U.S. based site owner what your responsibilities in regards to EU citizens data are is critical. As you can see above the fines can be astronomical and could bankrupt a small company. I’m sure you are wondering what your responsabilities are and how to become compliant. There is no blanket formula but there are certain general areas that need to be addressed. Below I will list a few key points concerning the GDPR.

Info below from business.com

  • “Consent
    • GDPR stresses consent above all else. In fact, that’s really the entire point. While obtaining data, consent needs to be explicit, crystal clear and corroborative. According to Article 4 of GDPR, consent is defined as: “Any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of his or her wishes by which the data subject, either by statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to personal data relating to them being processed.”In addition, while dealing with data of children under 16, parental consent is necessary. Moreover, citizens of the EU can have their personal data erased if the company doesn’t require it for the initial purpose of collection anymore.
  • Cookie Usage
    • All database driven websites and even some static website use cookies. Cookies are little text files stored on your computer that do many things when it comes to saving data such as analytic data, saving password information, and identifying certain content, or individuals demographics among others. Citizens of the EU must be able to identify and eliminate this type of stored data. In other words, “the right to be forgotten”.
  • Notification of data breach
    • If a data breach occurs, the supervisory authority needs to be informed within 72 hours of the happening. If the privacy of any EU citizens is at risk, they need to be notified as well. Starting this May, you’ll need to be vigilant and acutely aware of any actual or potential data breaches that may impact customers or individuals located in the EU.
  • Right to be forgotten
    • Pursuant to Article 17 of GDPR, every individual reserves the right to ask for the deletion of their personal data in situations when the data is no longer required: ” … in relation to the purposes for which it was initially collected or otherwise processed.”With this in mind, be prepared for any customers you might have in the EU to request that you remove any information you have stored pertaining to them. “

GDPR can be your competitive edge

Customers and clients love to feel companies they are doing business with really care. One of the biggest concerns people have online today is their information privacy. That’s where the EU have built from the ground up the (General Data Protection RegulationGDPR)Everyone collects data on us today from huge companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon to small the small Mom and Pop online stores. Who has your data and what they do with it is always on our minds. It’s used everywhere from keeping us logged into a site to marketing our everyday products to us.

Being compliant not only protects us when EU citizens and businesses access our sites, but also can give us that competitive edge. People are much more at ease with transparency. It lets the individual or business accessing your site know you genuinely care about their privacy. Contact us, we can help you become compliant. There is no one shoe fits all solution to this undertaking. Every business and website has unique issues to overcome but there are a few basic elements as described above. These are the issues we will address to get started with becoming compliant.

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01 Nov 2011

2d Bar QR Codes And How You Can Use Them For Marketing My Business?

What can I do with 2d barcodes?

Market yourself, your business and inform the world of  your products and expertise.

The term 2d barcode is applied to barcodes which use both the vertical and the horizontal components of the barcode symbol to hold data.

Above is an example of a 2d barcode. These bar codes can be used by smart phones such as the iphone and Android among others for marketing to share data such as web sites, phone numbers, contact information, SMS code, twitter code and much more.

These codes can be used on websites for Realtors  to display properties, general contact information, in brick storefront widows for specials, and any place on or off the web where you want to share information.

For more information on using  2d barcodes please contact us.

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16 Oct 2011
30 Sep 2011

Marketing Your Website or Blog With Social Media

Understanding how to use social media avenues and the importance of social media within the search engines

 

How to use social media

Many people are under the misconception that social media is for selling products or services in a conventional manner as you would in a penny saver or newspaper ad. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes. You can sell within social media. How you go about selling is the secret.

Social media is for engaging and interacting with your social circles or groups. The goal is to build a following that finds what you offer and what you have to say interesting enough to keep coming back and to share you with there circles and followers. The best way to do this is by offering, for free, something of value. There are many things you can offer. One of the least expensive giveaways to you is giving good, reliable, accurate information that can used to improve your followers goals. Before you offer products or services you have for sale you should offer a dozen pieces of free content to every one sales pitch. Don’t push your products or services on people, give them the reason they should buy from you. Some questions you should answer for your potential customers / clients are:

  • What makes your product or service better than your competitors?
  • Why should your product or service be used instead of your competitors?
  • What do you do better than your competitor?
  • How you can improve there bottom line?

To recap, don’t sell sell sell, offer your followers something of  real value for free, and let them know why your the better choice.

Why social media is important to search results

Social media has become a real time way of getting the information you are looking for. The search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo realize how these avenues have become an important part of our everyday lives. They now include many aspects of social media within there search results such as tweets from twitter and video from places like You Tube. Using these media outlets to your advantage to market websites and blogs can be very beneficial to businesses. They are very useful for building back links to your main site or blog where people can gain more information about what you offer.

There are may tools to help analyze your efforts with social media. You can find a list of tools  that can be helpful in understanding whether or not your efforts are beneficial to your business. Take a look here for a list.

Please leave your comments if you find this useful.

27 Aug 2011

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools You Should Not Be Without

Having tools to do the job correctly is key to any task. Proper tools make the job easier, faster, and more efficient. We have complied a list of some of the best free SEO tools available to anyone including website owners and webmasters. Some of the tools listed also have paid premium versions that contain more features than the free versions. Take a look through our list and if you have tools you use, please let us know so we can test them and possibly add them to our list.

Google

You must have a Google Account to use Google tools

Firefox

SEOBook

16 Jul 2011

How Do I Choose Key Words And Phrases For My Web Site Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

How do I choose a list of  key words and phrases for my site?

This is a question many clients ask and is a reasonable question. Often a web site owner will not think outside the box for search words that may find new customers or clients. Below I will list several ways to process a full list of viable key words for your business.

First write down the list of key words and phrases you would use to find your business. Have several other people to do the same. Ask as many different types of people as possible to do this for you. Choose the people you ask by age, sex, demographics, and any other variable that may suit your business.

Enter searches into a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo and see if competing businesses come up.

Use your search words and phrases to do a search and research the companies that come up by reading through the content on their pages, paying close attention to key words and phrases that would relate to your business. You will be surprised at the words you may have never considered.

Use a key word generator tool to help in this process Google has a great tool for AdWords campaign that works very well. You can find the tool HERE.

If you are in need of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and are looking for a company that has the experience and knowledge to place you where you want to be in an organic search, contact DeZineZone today  for a free no obligation consultation and quote 1-877-578-4591 or send us an e-mail

25 Jun 2011
21 Jun 2011

Aesthetic Marketing

Aesthetic marketing is something not often put into the equation of a well marketed website. It is extremely important your site has a professional look and feel. First impressions are lasting impressions and can make or break you. The two major elements that will affect the aesthetics of your site are color and layout.

Color schemes that are pleasing and appealing should be chosen for your site. If you have branding with a color scheme in place it will help determine what colors would work for you. If you don’t have any type of branding or have no idea what colors work well together you can use our color picker (only works in (IE) Internet Explorer) to help develop an appealing color scheme.

To decide what type of  layout will work well for you can be quite a tedious process. There are many different types of layout. There are Single or one (1) column, two (2) column, three (3) column, horizontal navigation, vertical navigation, or a combination of both horizontal and vertical. One way to help you determine what will work well for you is to search the internet for sites that are easy for YOU to navigate and that you find appealing.  Ask a friend or two to do the same and between all the choices you come up with your should have a pretty good idea of what will work for your site.

Keep in mind, not everyone has the same view as to what is appealing. It is important to get the opinions of others once you have decided on an aesthetically pleasing site.

Color, layout, and ease of navigation are 3 factors to consider when laying out your site.

Web hosting that works DeZineZone

23 Apr 2011

How Do I Market My Business Online?

[ad#Google Adsense]

Know your goals

Creating a set of  initial goals will help to stay focused. This task will take some time to complete by researching your niche and seeing what works for others within your own market. You may also want to work “outside the box” and come up with one or two unique marketing strategies that  can be specific to your industry.

An Important Note:
When writing articles don’t forget the five (5) basic principals of Writing, Who, What , Where, When, and Why. These will give you a good initial starting point for article writing.

There are many other ways to market online but here are some examples of ways to market.

  • SEO Strategies
    • Well thought out easy to use navigation
    • Create unique, targeted, well written content
    • Use correct h tags
    • Use meta Tags
      • description tag
      • etc.
    • Use good title tags
      • different on every page
      • include relevant key words and phrases
    • Well targeted article titles
    • etc.
    • Be sure to include alt tags in images
    • Use anchor text within links (internal or external)
    • Create a sitemap (for users and an xml version for search engines
  • Linking
    • request reciprocal links
    • submit to major directories These are different than the actual search engine.
      • Google Directory
      • Yahoo Directory
      • DMOZ
      • etc.
    • etc.

Stay focused on your goals

Once you have set goals try to stay with those choices, at least for a predefined period of time. Switching your goals and not giving ample time for your goals to mature will only have you running in circles. These strategies take time. None of this happens over night.

Plan on investing time in your plan

Time is critical to any business and how we spend that time is very important. Having a well constructed time frame for accomplishing tasks will assist you in actually getting these tasks done in a timely manner. Set aside a routine time to write articles, social network, and general interaction online for marketing purposes.

Analyze your efforts

Knowing whether or not your techniques are actually working is critical in determining whether or not you should continue with the strategy after the time frame you ave allotted. Using an Analytic software can assist in tracking these type of statistics.

Do not give up on your main goal/s

Keep focused on your goal/s. What is your ultimate goal? To sell? To inform? To brand? Find your goal and Stay focused.

We are always here to help. If you are in need of a professional team to assist  your with your online presence please consider contacting us.

22 Apr 2011

Using Linkedin To Social Network Your Business

Linkedin LogoSocial networking is exactly that, networking with other individuals with similar interests in a social environment. For professionals in all industries Linkedin offers the ultimate meeting room within it’s groups. A place to discuss, agree, disagree, and give general or specific points of view.

An individual can gain or contribute enormous amounts of information. One group I am involved with is Social Media Marketing. A recent topic of discussion focused on “What/who would you recommend for a “crash course” in social media marketing?” The response was worth it’s weight in gold. The amount of free information, blogs articles, etc from the people who use social media every day (including myself} as a marketing tool was outstanding.

Another great feature of the Linkedin format is for job seekers. Most groups also Have an area for posting jobs. This gives great opportunities not only for employers but also potential employees.

Try Linkedin yourself. If you own a business or are looking for employment it’s definitely worth looking into.

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