So just encase this ever happens to you one day you’ll be prepared for every case scenario.
Suzanne Kantra
If your email account has been hacked, would you know what to do? Changing your password isn’t good enough. You’ll also want to make sure the hacker hasn’t set up your account to let him get back in or to keep spamming, even after he’s locked out. Here’s what you need to do to get everything back in order and keep hackers out of your account for good.
Step #1: Run a security scan on your computer
Run a full scan of your computer with your anti-malware software — don’t do a quick scan, if that’s an option. Sending email to your friends and family isn’t the end goal for hackers. They want to separate you from your money and that means that they’ll try to install keyloggers to get your passwords and other malware. We like Malwarebytes (free for Mac/Windows) as well as Bitdefender Total Security (check price on Amazon) and Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe (check price on Amazon).
Step #2: Change your password and security questions
The very first thing you should do is keep the hacker from getting back into your email account. Change your password to a strong password that is not related to your prior password; if your last password was billyjoe1, don’t pick billyjoe2—and if your name is actually BillyJoe, you shouldn’t have been using your name as your password in the first place.
Try using a meaningful sentence as the basis of your new password. For example, “I go to the gym in the morning” turns into “Ig2tGYMitm” using the first letter of each word in the sentence, mixing uppercase and lowercase letters and replacing the word “to” with “2.”
Don’t just change your email password. Also change the passwords of any accounts that share the same password as your hacked email account and even those that are variation of that password. As an extra security measure, also change the passwords for any sites that story your credit card information, like your Nextlix, Amazon and credit card company.
For accounts that require security questions, change those as well. And if the questions are generic, like what’s your mother’s maiden name, lie when answering and record those answers in your password manager. If you want to be extra careful, use a password generator to create a nonsense answer.
Step #3: Reclaim your account
If you’re lucky, the hacker only logged into your account to send a mass email to all of your contacts.
If you’re not so lucky, the hacker changed your password too, locking you out of your account. If that’s the case, you’ll need to reclaim your account, which is usually a matter of using the “forgot your password” link and answering your security questions or using your backup email address.
Check out the specific recommendations for reclaiming possession of your account for Gmail, Outlook.com and Hotmail, and AOL.
Step #4: Enable two-factor authentication
Set your email account to require a second form of authentication in addition to your password whenever you log into your email account from a new device. When you log in, you’ll also need to enter a special one-time use code the site will text to your phone or generated via an app.
Sometimes hackers might change your settings to forward a copy of every email you receive to themselves so that they can watch for any emails containing login information for other sites. Check your mail forwarding settings to ensure no unexpected email addresses have been added.
Next, check your email signature to see if the hacker added a spammy signature that will continue to peddle their dubious wares even after they’ve been locked out.
Check your “reply to” email address. Sometimes hackers will change your “reply to” email address to one they’ve created that looks similar to yours. So when someone replies to your email, it goes to the hacker’s account, not yours.
Last, check to make sure the hackers haven’t turned on an auto-responder, turning your out-of-office notification into a spam machine.
Step #6: Find out what else has been compromised
My mother-in-law once followed the ill-advised practice of storing usernames and passwords for her various accounts in an email folder called “Sign-ups.” Once the hacker was into her email, he easily discovered numerous other logins.
Most of us have emails buried somewhere that contain this type of information. Search for the word “password” in your mailbox to figure out what other accounts might have been compromised. Change these passwords immediately; if they include critical accounts such as bank or credit card accounts, check your statements to make sure there are no suspicious transactions. You should also consider adding a fraud alert or security freeze to your accounts with the major credit agencies.
Step #7: Humbly beg for forgiveness from your friends
Let the folks in your contacts list know that your email was hacked and that they should not open any suspicious emails or click on any links in any email(s) that recently received from you. Most people will probably have already figured out that you were not the one recommending they buy Viagra from an online pharmacy in India—but you know, everyone has one or two friends who are a little slower to pick up on these things.
Step #8: Prevent it from happening again
While large-scale breaches are one way your login information could be stolen, many cases are due to careless creation or protection of login information.
Picking a strong password is your best protection from this type of hacking. It also is prudent to use a different password for each site or account, or, at the very least, use a unique password for your email account, your bank account and any other sensitive accounts. If you’re concerned about keeping track of your passwords, find a password management program to do the work for you. Check out our picks for the best password managers.
Limit the amount of personal information you share publicly on social media. Hackers use this publicly available personal information to help answer security questions that protect your accounts.
Bookmark websites that you frequently use to access personal information or input credit card information. This will prevent you from accidentally landing on a site that hackers set up to catch people mistyping the site address.
In a friend’s case, her passwords were pretty good and there was no malware on her computer. But she was careless about where she was logging in. On a recent trip overseas, she used the computer in her hotel lobby to check her email. That was a bad idea.
Computers in hotel lobbies, libraries and other public places are perfect locations for hackers to install key-logging programs. The computers are often poorly secured and get used by dozens of people every day who don’t think twice about logging into their email or bank accounts or entering credit card information to make a purchase. The best practice is to assume that any public computer is compromised and proceed accordingly.
Isn’t it frustrating when you purchase a product and you are waiting on the emails for your login details, but it seems like it never comes? Then a few days later, you find it in your spam or promotions folder where it was sitting this whole time.
These days this happens all the time with the abundance of spam we get. And that’s why it’s important to whitelist email address when we subscribe to a list, so we can make sure we keep getting that valuable information in our inboxes. Plus if you are doing any type of Internet Selling then this will have a huge impact on your business if you don’t follow this protocol.
A lot of newbie marketers don’t realize how important this is in this day and age. With so many spam words now in email promgrams if you use the wrong word you emails will go straight to spam.
Sometimes just whitelisting isn’t enough. Sometimes it’s even best to have your customers set a filter to make sure your email are filtered by you so that you are really sure they will end up in your ‘inbox’ and not else where!
But What Does Whitelisting An Email Mean Exactly?
Whitelisting essentially means when you are approving someone to send you emails that show up in your ‘inbox’, and not go to your spam, or promotions folders.
Now sometimes even though you whitelist their email address, it still may go to the promotions folder first, depending on how the email was written.
In that case, you would just drag that email, [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=”swtyUlHwqUE&rel=0″ width=”640″ height=”480″ anchor=”like this video here”], from the Promotions tab into the primary folder. And for instance (like in Gmail) you would get a white box popping up near the bottom asking you if want these emails, from this sender, to always go to your primary folder. Then you would simply click yes.
How To Whitelist Emails
Whitelisting is a simple one-time process that permits you to never miss an email again. This procedure changes somewhat depending on the email platform being used. The following are directions on the best way to whitelist messages over the significant email frameworks.
Whitelisting Using A Smartphone
How To Whitelist Emails Using Your Smartphone
Android Phone
Open an email from the sender you wish to whitelist.
Click their icon/picture.
Then click “Add to Contacts.”
Apple iPhone
Open your Mail app and go to the Mailboxes screen.
Select the Junk folder.
Find the email you want to whitelist and swipe left to see options.
Tap the More button.
Tap the Mark button.
Tap the Mark as Not Junk button.
Whitelisting Using Desktop Email
One of the best and most efficient ways to Whitelist is using Filters. I show how to use them in this video here!
Gmail
If you are using Gmail, you have most likely seen they have separate tabs for “Primary” or “Social.” and “Promotions”.
In order to charge a sender’s priority, you will:
Click on an email from the sender you want to whitelist and drag it to the “Primary” folder.
After that, a small box will pop-up asking you if you wanted to move that sender.
Click, “Yes.” [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=”zQUe4aeBlZM&rel=0″ width=”640″ height=”480″ anchor=”like this video here”]
Yahoo
Simply select a message from the sender you are going to whitelist.
Next to their email address should be a “plus” sign (+).
Click on the plus sign and select “Add to Contacts”
Then click “Save.”
Outlook
If using outlook.com:
Open an email from the sender you are going to whitelist.
An alert should show saying, “Parts of this message have been blocked for your safety.”
All you have to do is click, “I trust this sender. Always show content.”
If using Outlook 20XX:
Open an email from the sender you are going to whitelist
A message should appear at the header of the message saying, Click here to download pictures, but then in the drop-down click, “Add sender to safe senders list.”
Windows Live Desktop
Open the message from the sender whom you want to whitelist.
Where it says, “Some images in this message are not shown.” There you can click the link that says, ” Add to safe sender’s list.”
AOL
Go to a message from the sender
In the preview, you can highlight the sender’s email address and a drop-down menu will appear.
You then select “Add Contact.”
Apple (OS X & iOS devices)
Select the “From,” or “Reply-To” button in the email.
Then you click, “Add to VIPs.”
And that’s about it for how to whitelist emails. Pretty simple right?
If you have been building any kind of email list, then you should make sure to relay this information to every subscriber that gets on your list. If you don’t know how to build an email list yet, then I recommend this training.
Make sure to tell your subscribers how to whitelist your own email address and make sure that you do this in the “Welcome” email because this is the main one that gets the highest open rates.
This is just good email marketing practices and also will help your business thrive with email marketing.
If you don’t have this information on hand, you can send your subscribers to this page where they can learn how to whitelist, we don’t mind helping you provide this information to help your business.
According to emailout.com, another relevant and important term, especially for email marketers, is email blacklisting.
A blacklist is a real-time database put together by an ISP to help protect subscribers from harmful content.
It identifies known domains or IP addresses which send spammy emails. If you end up on an email blacklist, your email will get flagged by spam filters and your message will not get through to your subscribers – at all.
In closing, if you are thinking about becoming an email marketer yourself, you will want to learn as much of this stuff as possible so you can understand how all of this fits together.
Do some research, take some courses and I wish you the best of luck!
Although I’ve been in marketing for 20+ years now. Traffic trends come and go. And what worked a few years ago is no longer working today as it use to back then.
So here are 6 best traffic sources that I’ve found over the last few years of doing marketing online that are still working well in 2020.
YouTube Ads
YouTube Ads
YouTube Ads are one of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing in 2020 because they are responsible for the success of many marketers today and they are all using the Mega Video Platform to Cash in.
But make no mistake, if you do them wrong you can waste a lot of money. So if YouTube Ads are something you want to conquer then you need a good strategy to use like 10m YouTube Ads that show you how to scale your YouTube Ads from $0 To $100k/mo in 30 Days.
As you already know YouTube is the number 1 most visited website as of 2019 in the US as shown on ahrefs.com with a monthly Traffic rate of (1,705,778,109).
But if YouTube Ads are not your thing you can still get free traffic from YouTube as well. But there is a hard way and an easy way. One of the easiest ways to do it would be the way they teach in Creatox where you can make money from YouTube without creating your own videos.
The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day. Even more now as this statistic was from Dec 13, 2017, according to Videonitch.com.
Thumbnail Blaster – Get More Clicks On Your YouTube Thumbnails
So as you can see YouTube is a great first place to start getting some traffic. Personally, it’s my favorite place because it’s where everyone hangs out at. You are bound to find your specific audience there looking for what you have.
Google Ads
Google Ads
Google Ads is another one of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing online in 2020. Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users.
Now if this is your first crack at using Google Ads it may get a bit confusing on the platform if you are new to this. It may even be a challenge for you to create your first Google Ad.
In that case, I would recommend that you get some good Google Ad training first before attempting it on your own. This way you won’t lose unnecessary money because you don’t know what the hell you are doing.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads
Facebook is another one of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing online in 2020.
1.66 billion people on average log onto Facebook daily and are considered daily active users (Facebook DAU) for December 2019. This represents a 9 percent increase year-over-year according to Zephoria.com
Facebook is a great place to find highly targeted traffic. However, you don’t want to do affiliate marketing there as it’s easy to get hit with the band hammer. Facebook much prefers you to promote real businesses such as services or physical products.
Here are just a few facts about Facebook according to SproutSocial.
Users, 65 years and older are the fastest-growing group on Facebook
Fewer teens are using Facebook now than in previous years
Only 10% of Facebook users live in the US or Canada
74% of Facebook users are high-income earners
1.62 billion users visit Facebook daily
88% of Facebook users are on the platform to stay in contact with friends and family
Facebook makes it easy for you to get started advertising, but there is still a bit of a learning curve if you want your ads to be successful and turn over an ROI. So again I recommend you get some training on how to do Facebook Ads the right way such as how Facebook Ads University teaches with easy to follow videos. That way you won’t be losing money left and right and know exactly what to do.
Pinterest
Pinterest
Pinterest is another one of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing in 2020 that is on my list. I took a really good course a while back on marketing on Pinterest called EZ Pin Traffic Reloaded and it was really killer. Man, I learned a lot from that one. I now get like 3.6k monthly views already.
According to Hootsuite, Pinterest averages a $4.30 gross return for every $1 spent on ads. In terms of ROI, that’s $2 in profit for every advertsising dollar, according to a 2017 study by Analytic Partners.
Pins that feature life moments experience a 22% life in sales. And Pinterest is forecast to grow ad revenue by 40% in 2019. So now that we are in 2020 I’m sure that will only increase.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing
Yet another one of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing online in 2020. This is by far in my opinion the best traffic source you can get for your money spent. Once you have your email list built up you can then market to them over and over again delivering the best bang for your buck.
Secret Email System by Matt Bacak
Again there is a learning process to become successful with email marketing and there is a lot of people that get this all wrong.
Such as:
Segmentation
Optimization
Autoresponder Set Up
Building an Optin Page
How to write effective emails
List maintenance
And much more
As you can see there is a lot to take in and that’s just a short list.
And you know what? Email Marketing of today v/s yesterday, kind of reminds me of a good article I recently read. It’s about how Dads of Today Differ From Prior Generations. You can check out that article below if you’re interested. It’s a good one…
How Do Today’s Dads Differ From Prior Generations?
A while back I got certified as an email marketing specialist among other certifications (see all of them here) from Digital Marketer HQ (a company by Ryan Deiss) and I had to learn all of this before I became successful with it.
So I created a training course called Email Marketing Made Simple to help others break through that learning curve barrier so that they can start seeing quick results.
As email will always be the back bone of any business to me it’s the best traffic source you can have.
Organic Search Traffic
Organic Search Traffic
And the last of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing online in 2020 is Organic Searches.
Of course, we all know what this means, but for those out there that do not. It simply means when someone goes to a search engine (like Google.com) and searches for a topic. Then a bunch of links to sites come up and they click one that seems like the best candidate for their search topic. Once they arrive on that site, the owner just received a visitor through organic traffic search. Meaning the site owner did not pay for them to come to their site through advertisements, the visitor just found the site by searching.
To some, this may be the best traffic source of all because it’s free.
But it takes a lot of hard work to build it up to that level using SEO and other techniques. You have to get your sites to rank high enough to start receiving good results in the search engines. And that takes time and much effort especially if you don’t know what you are doing.
But there are ways that can get your sites to rank faster and you can even make a lot of money creating niche sites if you do it right. And again this is where training comes in for this type of thing. You want to find someone that does this for a living to teach you the right way to do it.
In this case, I recommend WP Affiliate Suite a complete A-Z affiliate training course that shows you how to rank affiliate sites using WordPress.
Well… that’s going to wrap up my list of the 6 best traffic sources for marketing in 2020.
If you are going to be using traffic the best way to get people to pay attention is to use Explainer Videos.
And last but not least, I think it’s important that you understand the statistics of Social Media to better utilize that traffic in 2022, so here’s an article all about that called 10 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know in 2022!
Here’s why email marketing is effective for every marketer that I know.
It not only helps with your brand awareness but it’s also the best way to increase your sales and conversions.
Here’s a simple question. What do you do on your phone most of all when you wake up?
Besides checking your Facebook page or watching YouTube videos, what else do you do?
Check your email right!
Because you want to see what’s going on in the world. You want to know if there are any sales or if any new products are coming out.
Are maybe you want to check out if any new movies are coming soon.
The truth is, despite all of the bots out there and all the other forms of communications, email will never go away. It’s here to stay and research proves it.
Email Users Keep Growing And Growing
According to Statista, In 2018, global email users amounted to 3.8 billion and is set to grow to 4.4 billion users in 2023.
Another reason why email marketing is effective is that it helps business owners and customers stay connected.
In an article by Nielsen, they state that 75% of American adults are omni-shoppers—buying both online and offline. This means there is a greater chance that most of these shoppers were sent emails about those products that they purchased.
Email Marketing Is Inexpensive
Email Marketing Is Inexpensive Compared To The ROI You Can Receive
Another reason why email marketing is effective is that it keeps the cost down. Depending on the type of email service that you use will determine the cost per consumer.
But if you have your own dedicated server then you are not paying a monthly fee for your autoresponder service, thus allowing business owners to real a large number of consumers for pennies on the dollar.
Well, that pretty much sums it up on Why Email Marketing Is Effective in my opinion.
