Our clients Brad and Hilary Lauder, Directors of Laudable Consulting use their decades of experience in the online space to help businesses build, improve and maintain a professional and secure online presence. Hilary has been building websites since arriving in Australia from the UK in 2000, they ran one of the biggest websites in Australia (The Bub Hub) for almost 20 years and have built websites for clients such as Johnstone Rorke, Bretts Wharf Restaurant and The Car Buying Centre. They are using that experience to help businesses address the many issues that have appeared in the online space in recent times.
Websites come in all shapes and sizes and their importance to an organisation range from the informative to the imperative. Whatever your website’s purpose, it is normally the first way many of your potential clients get detailed information about your business. It is therefore important that your website represents your organisation professionally and effectively. Websites, like your car, now require regular maintenance to ensure they are working optimally and SECURELY. If updates are not performed promptly, it can allow unscrupulous people (hackers) to take advantage of back doors into programs, which is often the reason for the update in the first place! That is where agencies like Laudable Consulting come in.
Websites are no longer static, much like apps on your phone they require regular updating. There are a number of items that affect your website:
- The program that runs the webserver your website is hosted on.
- The platform the website is written in (PHP is popular)
- The theme used to build the site. This can be a particular issue if you are running an unsupported custom theme!
- All plug-ins used by the site, most sites will have some, some will have many.
- Any customisations
The bottom line is that websites used to be set and forget but that has not been true for many years. Updates occur randomly as required so need constant monitoring. The existence of Hacker collectives, state-sponsored hackers and data mining operations mean that it is more important than ever to take preventative steps to make your online presence as secure as possible. Hilary points out that it only takes a small hole in any of the factors outlined above for your website to become vulnerable. The statement from Ben Franklin that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is particularly apt.
Like using an IT guru to set up your network, it is important to have a firm like Laudable Consulting performing regular maintenance to your website. As well as performing maintenance as outlined above, such firms can also do content updates and provide advice on any website issues your company may face. The first step when engaging any such company is to have your website audited. This will provide you with a clear picture of any issues your website might have now (or in the near future) and provide a starting point for the steps needed to keep your website doing the job it has always done……securely.
If you would like to have your website audited, see details (https://laudableconsulting.com.au/website-audit/) here updated, rebuilt, or indeed have any website questions, then Brad and Hilary would be more than happy to advise you. They can be contacted on 0404 898 832 or [email protected]
