Tag Archives: web and hosting tips

6 Easy Steps to Securing Your WordPress Blog

The post 6 Easy Steps to Securing Your WordPress Blog appeared first on HostGator Blog . Today, WordPress powers over 25 percent of websites, and for many site owners, working with this content management system (CMS) is a no-brainer. It’s free, there’s a huge community eager to help you out, and there are tons of awesome plugins that will help expand your site’s functions. It’s perfect for web developers and do-it-yourselfers […] Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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The Simple Guide To Avoiding Google Panda Penalties

The post The Simple Guide To Avoiding Google Panda Penalties appeared first on HostGator Blog . Since Google is trying to provide its searchers with the best possible experience, content that speaks directly to reader needs, and is higher quality, will tend to rank higher. The best way to avoid a penalty into the future is simply to focus on quality above all else. Below you’ll find five ways you can […] Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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5 WordPress Plugins For Managing and Publishing Podcasts

The post 5 WordPress Plugins For Managing and Publishing Podcasts appeared first on HostGator Blog . More bloggers are converting their existing written content into short and medium-sized podcasts that bring about a variety of benefits to the blogger as well as anyone consuming that kind of content, and you don’t have to eliminate one to work on the other as both can be combined together quite easily. As for the […] web hosting Continue reading

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3 Security Plugins for WordPress to Keep Your Blog Safe

The post 3 Security Plugins for WordPress to Keep Your Blog Safe appeared first on HostGator Blog . WordPress is home to hundreds of millions of bloggers, the idea that it wouldn’t be a huge target for hackers is nothing short of ignorant. WordPress is constantly being targeted by both low-profile and high-profile security pentesters who may want to exploit the platform for either personal benefit, or for getting an official reward, though the latter is rarely the case. Security can be seen in many different ways, but the type you will usually experience when dealing with WordPress is called web security. Web security possesses the ability to put your whole web file system at risk by having vulnerabilities that haven’t been properly understood and prevented. However, preventing attacks from previously unknown vulnerabilities is next to impossible, which is why we need to look elsewhere. Some of the best security protection for WordPress comes from using professional security plugins. A security plugin can help to prevent unauthorized access, as well as log threatening events, it can even completely disable access to your sensitive parts of your website, and you can be the only person in charge of enabling them back. Lets take a look at the top three WordPress security plugins on the market. 1. Sucuri Security Sucuri is a well-known and established name in the world of WordPress (and general web) security. The Sucuri Security plugin has been built to reflect the latest developments in web security, so as to ensure that all WordPress bloggers have their blogs safe and secure. Sucuri plugin will help you to monitor the activity of your logs and outline potential security risks, the plugin comes equipped with a versatile malware scanner that will remove any malware on daily basis, on top of that it will integrate a number of security practices that will make it next to impossible for hackers to break into your blog. Click here to download Sucuri. 2. BulletProof Security BulletProof is very likely to be the most sophsisticated WordPress security plugin, with an amount of features that no other plugin has been able to match, and most likely never will. Is this a good thing? Well, it depends. The BulletProof Security plugin does a lot of things besides securing your WordPress blog, it will help you optimize your sites performance, and you will be able to take advantage of features such as .htaccess security, database backup security, and security precautions for all logged-in users. (Cookie based.) It’s highly recommended that you spend some time reading the full list of features on the official plugin page, and decide for yourself whether this plugin is something you’d like to work with. Click here to download BulletProof. 3. Wordfence Security The first thing Wordfence will do after you install the plugin, is to instantly check your site against possible malware threats. The way Wordfence does it, is that it takes the official WordPress source-code and checks it against your own current version on the server, including for themes and plugins. The output is a list of potential threats which you can then terminate, so you don’t have to worry about custom plugin and theme changes being classified as threats. This security plugin will not only make your site significantly faster, you will also be pleased to know that the plugin is open-source and anyone can contribute to its success. Click here to download Wordfence. web hosting Continue reading

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5 Tips for Optimizing Your Landing Pages

The post 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Landing Pages appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your homepage is a landing page, your product features page is a landing page, even the pricing page is a landing page. Any page that features call-to-action buttons to signup as a customer can be considered a landing page, but certainly others are more concise and specific than the rest. Typically it is the product’s main feature page that gets the most optimization care, because that’s the page that drives the most sales, based on the fact that it has an actionable intention. Landing page optimization is all about User Experience and User Interface, although our product can be amazing and solve a lot of problems for our customers, a poorly executed landing page will not drive the same amount of leads that a fully optimized landing page would. And what is the criteria for a good landing page anyway? 1. Setup an analytics platform Google Analytics is a good start, it will give you all the necessary insight about your visitors and some of their demographic information, but for more concise analytics it’s best to look into specifically built marketing solutions that can analyze data such as user live interaction, their browsing history on your landing pages, as well as their potential previous interactions with your landing page. All of which will give you a much more broad and clear understanding of how your landing page is being used. 2. Optimize for sales There’s little to no value in optimizing a landing page for search engines, if the landing page doesn’t perform well in front of live visitors. Search optimization is only a means of acquiring new and organic visitors, what happens next is their live experience with the landing page that you’re offering. If the experience is poor, so will be the number of sales. The best way to go about optimizing for sales is to understand basic principles of UX and UI, GoodUI is one such resource that offers several dozens of concise User Experience and User Interface tips that will let you optimize your landing pages for maximum conversion potential. 3. Remember the basics “What problem are you trying to solve with your service and whose problem is that exactly? The answers to these questions will help you identify who your target audience is. And once you’ve found that out, you then need to spend every waking moment researching on what exactly your audience wants.” – Fahad Muhammad Your first landing page will be bad, there’s no other way to go about it. Mistakes will be made, and changes will need to be done on almost daily basis, until some time a solid landing page forms and you can begin to start testing its performance. However, we have to emphasize the fact that all landing pages share common traits, components that make a landing page what it is, and without these components, the customer can easily get lost: Headline, and sub-headline (optional). Description that explains the value behind the offer. A self-explanatory image to reflect the product. A number of elements that portray quotes and/or testimonials. A form that can be used to gather visitors details. (pre-sales) Any other components are completely up to you and your own personal preference and/or experience, since there’s no shortage of landing page examples on the web, inspiration can be gained everywhere. 4. Limit the navigation options The job of a landing page is to keep the visitors attention focused on the copy of the landing page and what it is trying to offer, having a full-blown navigation menu available at the top of the page might be used as a means of exiting the page and thus eliminating any possibility of a sale to happen. This can also be seen as distraction. If you’re serious about making sales and increasing conversion rates with your landing page, get rid of the menu and see what happens! 5. Social proof One of the best ways to optimize a landing page is by enabling social proof. This can come in forms of testimonials, quotes and case studies that come from your existing customers. You might be wondering, how do I gain access to these? The best way is to reach out to your existing customers and ask them kindly to do some reviews for you so that you can use them on your landing page. This has been a proven technique for increasing sales through your landing page by the means of establishing credibility. web hosting Continue reading

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