Web Design

10 Tips to Boost Your WordPress Security

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:00:00 -0400

WordPress is one of the most popular and accessible CMS applications on the market, used by bloggers, web developers, large corporations and media outlets alike. But being the most popular tool also makes it a target for hackers who exploit and small vulnerabilities. Don't let your WordPress site be exposed to these attacks! Our tips will help you secure and protect your website.

WordPress is one of the most popular and accessible CMS applications on the market, used by first-time bloggers, web developers, large corporations and media outlets alike. With more than 60 million devotees worldwide, WordPress is in fact the most widely used content management system (CMS) today.

Unfortunately, this popularity also attracts the attention of hackers who exploit any small vulnerability.

Don’t let all the hard work you’ve put into your blog go to waste. Review these 10 WordPress security tips – and then take a few minutes to secure your website.

Change the ‘admin’ login. When you install WordPress, the default username is always ‘admin.’ Don’t make it easy for intrusive hackers to get in – change it!
Use strong passwords everywhere. This means a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. No words or dates! This goes for all passwords, including your cPanel/FTP password and WordPress admin password. Use a different password for each of them and remember to change them frequently.
Use the latest version of WordPress. WordPress regularly issues updates, designed to address known security concerns and vulnerabilities. Install updates right away – not only will this increase your site’s security, but it will help your blog run smoother. Update directly from your dashboard or WordPress, never a third-party provider.
Mind your plugins. Always do your due diligence before downloading a plugin. Research the plugin itself and only download from a trusted source. Keep your plugins up to date at all times.
Delete any plugins or themes you’re not using. You may have downloaded plugins or themes to try out, but decided not to use them. Simply deactivating them is not enough – delete them to ensure any weaknesses cannot be exploited. Review and delete your themes or plugins by going to Appearance > Themes or Plugins > Installed Plugins.
Install the ‘Limit Login Attempts’ plugin. This will block an IP address from accessing your account after a number of failed login attempts, as well as disabling brute force attacks. You can download this plugin directly from WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/limit-login-attempts/
Install the WP Security Scan plugin. This is another must-have plugin; it scans your WordPress for security issues and, best of all, offers a solution for any vulnerabilities it finds. Download it from WordPress here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/
Use .htaccess files to protect the ‘wp-admin’ and other directories. The .htaccess files are available in your hosting folder; you may also upload a blank index.html file to the folder to achieve the same result. Read more about .htaccess here: http://hostpapasupport.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=220
Install and activate anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. Don’t forget the updates!
Back up your files regularly. Do planned manual backups at least once a week or - even better - take advantage of HostPapa Automated Website Backup. http://hostpapasupport.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=view&parentcategoryid=225&pcid=0&nav=0

These tips will help you enjoy your website experience long into the future. A little time spent tightening your website security now might just save you a lot of time and frustration later.

How to Build a Website Using WordPress in Ten Steps

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:00:00 -0400

There is no doubt that WordPress is the best content management system (CMS) for your website. Setting up your own WordPress website can seem like a daunting task, but fear not, help is on the way: read our ten easy steps to getting started on WordPress now!

Setting up your own WordPress website can seem like a daunting task if you’ve never done anything like this before. Fortunately, one of the best things about using WordPress is that it’s so user-friendly and intuitive, just about anyone can do it!

While the technical part of setting up a WordPress website isn’t really complicated, knowing what to put on your website and how to make it work for you can be a little bit more difficult.

Here’s ten easy steps to getting started on WordPress. Simply follow these and you’ll be up and running in no time at all.

Step 1: Define your site

Before you do anything involving WordPress, you need to pick your niche. Trying to develop a WordPress website about something that’s been done 10,000 times isn’t going to prove terribly beneficial. If your WordPress site isn’t for an existing business, make sure you pick a topic that truly interests you, so that it won’t feel like a chore to work on and update your site now or months down the road.

Step 2: Choose a domain name

Your domain name should relate directly to the niche you chose in step 1, and it should be a name that’s so easy for users to remember that they never forget it. Doing some keyword research can also be helpful. Stuck on a particular name but .com is taken? Try .net or .co.

Step 3: Hire a web host

Your next step is to find a reliable web host to handle your site. Here at HostPapa, we offer industry-leading servers and infrastructure. Our multilingual customer support is available via chat, email, and telephone; we also maintain an extensive knowledgebase and video tutorials. What about a shared vs. dedicated server? In most cases, shared web hosting will be just fine and it very popular with WordPress users.

Step 4: Install WordPress

At the risk of stating the obvious, once you have found your web host and domain name, it’s time to install WordPress and get up and running. At HostPapa, installing WordPress is incredibly easy and takes just minutes with our Softaculous script installer.

Step 5: Choose a WordPress theme

Next, you need to decide on a design theme for your WordPress site. There are thousands upon thousands of themes available, ranging from absolutely free to upwards of hundreds of dollars. When selecting your theme, try to ensure that it makes sense for both the topic of your site as well as the layout and content you plan to publish.

Step 6: Configure your plugins

A WordPress Plugin is a program written in the PHP scripting language, that adds a specific set of features or services to a WordPress website. WordPress plugins provide a great deal of customization and flexibility to your WordPress site, as well as valuable features and tools for your visitors. You may not start out with a ton of plugins, but the longer you use WordPress, the more you’ll find ones that benefit your site. Some of our favorites include JetPack and Yoast SEO.

Step 7: Complete your administrative pages

Important pages include your contact page, about page, privacy, and disclaimer page. Get these out of the way before you focus on adding content to your site - after all, it’s easier to add them now than later, when you’re done publishing all of the other, more exciting stuff! These pages also serve to protect both you and your site visitors.

Step 8: Publish your content. Rinse. Repeat.

After you get the important administrative pages published, it’s time to start adding interesting content. Whatever your niche, you want to make sure you include plenty of quality content for your readers. Make your pages visually rich and further, make it a priority to keep adding new content on a regular basis. If blogging, add at least one image to each and every post. Not only does this give your readers something to pin on Pinterest, it also makes your content more appealing. Whether you decide to add content daily, weekly, or monthly, creating a content calendar will help keep you on the right track.

Step 9: Don't forget marketing

Marketing your new site is a two-fold endeavor. First, there’s SEO (search engine optimization): make sure your pages have relevant keywords in the title, description, and body text. Second, take the time to promote your site in any way possible. Free options include the use of social media sites, forums, and emailing out a regular newsletter. You may also consider guest posting and commenting on blogs, forums, and communities to build up your social connections and link popularity.

Step 10: Back up your site

Your content is your most valuable asset, so make sure you back up your site! For your blog, that means backing up your content in case of a crash so you won’t have to start all over again. If you don’t back up posts, plugins, and affiliate links, it might take you a while before getting back on your feet. If you don’t have time to regularly back up your site, your web host should offer an alternative. HostPapa, for example, offers a terrific automated website backup service that takes just a few minutes to set up - no need to worry about backing up your site ever again!

There you have it - WordPress in ten easy steps!

Need more info? Check out our 6-part HostPapa WordPress video tutorial series

A Great Ecommerce Site... From the Customer’s Point of View

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:30:00 -0500

If you are running an ecommerce business, you know how important it is to have a well-designed and well-serviced website.

It’s often challenging to run an ecommerce website successfully, since there are so many elements to consider. After all, you’re not just presenting your company to visitors, you are also running your business through your website - including taking orders, accepting payments, providing delivery information, and more. While you may be personally acquainted with how your website functions, it is also necessary to take into account how easy it is for customers to navigate, and also what appeals most to potential customers.

Here’s some components of an ecommerce site that contribute to a great customer experience and that can in turn increase your sales.

Design and Appearance

Since there’s no personal interaction with customers, the design and layout of your website is paramount. Think of your website as being the “face” of your company. You could have the greatest products in the world and provide customer service that’s second-to-none, but potential customers will never get to experience this unless they actually make a purchase. First impressions count!

Some quick tips:

Research how to design great websites
Keep it simple and cut the clutter
Organize and categorize your products to make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for
Get external feedback of your website from resources like Usertesting.com

Product Range

When deciding on product selection, it’s important to realize that more is not necessarily better. The number of products on your site also won’t necessarily determine the success of your business. In fact, limiting your product selection can actually prove beneficial, since it prevents customers from experiencing decision paralysis, enables them to easily locate particular products, and reduces the number of steps before a purchase is completed.

Another drawback in having too huge a selection of products is the logistical challenges this poses. The failure to source and deliver products in a timely fashion can have a negative impact on your business.

Searchability / Navigation

An often-overlooked element of an ecommerce website is an onsite search engine. An effective search tool should provide an optimal number of relevant results quickly.

Navigation is also key - and refers not just to the menu bar on your site, but the various paths that visitors can take to find products. Successful ecommerce sites allow customers to search for products by category, by brand, by simple keyword search, or even by color or size. The categories you choose of course must reflect the types of products you’re selling - but take the time here to really think through how different visitors may search. You can’t sell something that cannot be found!

Product Pages

If a potential customer is at all uncertain about whether to make a purchase on your site, what they see and read on a detailed product page can make or break the sale. Here’s where you will describe the product more fully and provide images, link to reviews and ratings, and - where applicable - suggest accessories or complementary products. Keep your product pages neatly organized and be careful of information overkill or clutter, but don’t skimp on detail.

Visuals play an important role here. Because customers cannot actually touch and feel the product, they want to at least be able to see it - with multiple views, where possible. Even customers purchasing books at online bookstores like to see images of the cover to know whether they’re hardcover or paperback.

The Point of Sale

Once the customer has his shopping cart filled and is ready to buy, your website must be able to process the transaction smoothly. However, this involves more than just having a great server and payment gateway. You’ve got the customer at the cash register... now don’t let him slip through your fingers! Barriers to completing the sale can include:

Requiring an account before the sale gets processed. Be careful here that you ask for appropriate information, but don’t make it onerous. Another option is to ask at the end of the transaction if they would like to create an account (which then will pull much of the info they’ve already input for shipping/billing details, etc.)

High shipping costs, and/or vague shipping costs. Be transparent here and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.

Inconvenient payment methods. Be sure to list all payments on the product page and give multiple payment methods (at least 2 types of credit cards plus PayPal, at a minimum).

Speed

Speed is especially important for an ecommerce site. Customers are impatient and the faster you can get them to the purchase point, the more likely they are to buy. Website speed is also a way that customers evaluate your reliability as a merchant.

After the Purchase

After the transaction has been completed, your customer should be able to view an order summary and receipt, which should also be provided by email to them. Including links in the receipt that direct the customer to a page on the website where they can track their order is a great way to improve your customer’s experience and build trust.

Have your own ecommerce website tips to share? Post them here and we’ll feature them in a future blog posting!

So You've Got a Website, Now What Do You Put On It?

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:30:00 -0400

So you know that you need a website — good. Maybe you've even set up the site: bought the domain and hosting. But now that it's there, what do you do with it? You put up all main basic pages: About Us, Contact Us, Products/Services, FAQ. Now what? Does it stop there?

Far from it. In fact, if it does stop there your site is not liable to attract interest. A site with little content is little of a site at all, and before you can start marketing and promoting your website and expecting visitors to come and give you their email addresses, clicks or money (it's usually at least one of these) you need to populate your site with content that will interest...no captivate them. Good content not only brings a site search engine visibility but it improves the site's conversion rate. To this end, the creativity and technology website CrossComm posted an article in 2009 by Michael Stalker, a member of the CrossComm staff who specializes in "web development, website usability and SEO" offering 10 great ideas for such content.

As the owner of a website on a particular topic, you are officially an expert on that topic. That emboldens you to write expert reviews on the products sold on your site. Just be sure to post a disclaimer if you ever decide to review products given to you by another source for this purpose. Readers need to trust your credibility and if you're lauding praise onto a product you don't even represent, merely to get the promised link-back from that product's website, you're doing your own site and its visitors a disservice.

Your expertise on your website's topic, Stalker points out, should also extend to current events in your area of expertise. Not just event announcements either, which admittedly are also valuable (and another of Stalker's 10 "fresh ideas"). News happens every day and in every corner of the world. Chances are, something is happening right now in the corner of world your site focuses on, and who better to bring it to your potential visitors' attention than you. Don't be afraid to take a position, as long as it's relevant to your topic and doesn't alienate any of your audience. And remember, you can provide a compelling and even provocative viewpoint without necessarily being controversial.

And getting back to event announcements, for a moment, don't just limit yourself to announcing events put on by your company; provide some service to the community by posting events in your area, be that geographical, topical or otherwise.

Articles offer an endless trove of potential content for your website, if you're willing to dig a little. And the deeper you dig, the more article topics you'll find. Just start with a problem, relevant to your industry, to the products or services you offer, or simply relevant to your target audience; then solve that problem for them. Or write about how others elsewhere are trying to solve that problem. Instructive, how-to articles are also useful for visitors. Write about how to use the products or services you offer, how to get the best value out of them, even how to do other things related to your products, services, topics or market niche.

If your About Us page doesn't include a company history, that's another article topic that can turn into part of your site's main content.

One of the best ways to continually provide new content to your audience is with a blog. A blog allows you to write as much or as little as you want on a particular topic and then post it to the Web. Keep providing interesting content this way and people will start to subscribe to your blog, receiving your posts (or notifications of them) as updates in their emails or online readers. And as part of your website, blogs, unlike newsletters, help your SEO.

There are also a couple of ways Stalker suggests to encourage your users to contribute to your site's content. One way is with a forum in which you and they can start conversations on different topics, forming threads that anyone can read and contribute to. Another way to help users help you generate content for your website is with an expert Question and Answer section of your site. Invite people to write in with questions and answer them for all to see on this page.

Content is still king, even in this age of social media. Think about it: what are people mostly sharing on Facebook? Content. Without it, and enough of it, steadily supplied, your site may simply sink into the morass. But with it, yours can be the site notching up Facebook Likes and Twitter Follows.

5 Things to Consider When Building a Website

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:30:00 -0400

Not so long ago, designing and setting up a website was akin to performing surgery. It was tedious, technical, and solely the domain of experts. Ongoing website maintenance was practically a full-time job, fraught with frustration. There was no way every business or individual could manage a site.

How times have changed! Websites are now a dime a dozen. Almost anyone can have a website for minimal investment. It’s exciting, but it also means competition is high! A successful website has seconds to catch the attention of visitors, deliver on promise, and keep them interested. Second chances are rare.

That’s where we can help. Running a successful website is your aim, and helping you is our goal. Before you launch your new website, take time to consider these 5 crucial points.

Have a vision
Don’t jump in blind! Many website owners forget the first and most crucial step in the design process: A vision for the website. Before you start designing pages, you must take the time to carefully and strategically plan ahead.

To help define your vision, ask yourself some key questions:
1. What is the purpose of your website?
2. What type of website do you want? (Blog, information center, ecommerce site… )
3. Why will people come to your site? What benefits are you offering?
There is nothing more frustrating than visiting a website in search of valuable information and then being asked to buy irrelevant products. Likewise, someone looking for a specific product or service wants to be able to purchase it quickly and easily, and not have to sift through oodles of pages. Define what you do, and do it well. Have a vision for future expansion – but don’t get carried away in the early days.
Plan your website content
Proper due diligence will differentiate a successful website from a weak one. A good website is not just about putting up beautiful pages; the content needs to be relevant, succinct, and perfectly in tune with your vision. Capture the visitor’s attention with strong headlines and titles. Let the visitor know exactly what your site is about with just a glance. Regularly consult your mission statement to be sure you stay on topic. Remember: everything has to be designed and written in order to attract, impress, and retain visitors.
Define your target audience
Who is your ideal site visitor? Put yourself in the shoes of that person and think about what you would be looking for. Why would you visit this site? Why is it worth your time? Remember, you may need to present information in different ways for different age groups, professions, or level of expertise. Your website must meet the wants and needs of your target audience – it’s the only way to retain visitors.
Set realistic goals – and find the tools you need to meet them
You’ve already established your overall vision, now you need to establish short- and long-term goals. If you are a small business looking to expand into new markets, for example, be sure your website is a natural extension of that business. Consider how you will promote your site and the features you might need to do so (marketing tools, newsletter signup, coupons, polls…).

Or perhaps you’re trying to establish a new online community. In that case, you might need to incorporate tools such as comments, forum posts, and social sharing. Knowing what you hope to achieve will allow you to select the features, widgets, and add-ons that will help you get there
Determine how you will engage your audience
You need to give your audience what they want – not just once, but on an ongoing basis. If your visitors are going to come to your website for great content or information, give them just that! Offer white papers, articles, and regular blog posts – even downloadable presentations or documents. Providing an easy way to comment or discuss will keep visitors interested. If your visitors want to shop, you will need engaging material such as product descriptions, technical features, images, and possibly side-by-side product comparisons. Product reviews and social sharing widgets are crucial for getting the word out about your website!

The bottom line: You only have one chance to make a first impression on the visitors who will make or break your website. Forethought and vision goes a long way and will only help you in the end. Know your site before you even start – and be open to evolution!