Almost every individual who has an established online business runs a WordPress website. The problem arises when they think that nothing can affect their business ever. There is no doubt about the fact that WP is one of the best CMS platforms that comprises several themes, capabilities and plugins. But it also is extremely vulnerable to hacking. Every minute it is estimated that 90,978 attacks take place. This makes WordPress security extremely valuable in today’s time or else it can lead to insertion of spyware, users unknowingly giving out their personal information, etc. Follow these 10 simple WordPress security tips in 2020 & protect your WP website like never before.
[Read more…] about Safeguarding your website: 10 Simple WordPress Security Tricks in 2020WordPress
Your Site, Your Security, Your Responsibility
Last time, we talked a great deal about why you never want to go to court and the reasons that good attorneys will fight tooth and nail to keep you to out of court and away from judges/juries.
However, one of the sad truths of the Internet is that it’s easily possible to find yourself in a legal mess through almost no fault of your own if someone else infiltrates your site.
It might seem like an unlikely scenario, but if your site is hacked or taken over, you can find yourself with a great deal of legal difficulties. Even if you can clear your name quickly, your site, your account and your server could become evidence in a much larger case and you could easily find yourself shut out of even your backups as authorities, lawyers or others try to piece together what happened.
The problem is even worse if you store user data, in particular sensitive data such as credit card numbers and personal information, such as names and passwords. Not only do you face a potential breach of trust with your readers, but the authorities will likely want to know more about the hack and, at the very least, you’ll need to be offline while you figure out what happened and you could be found to be in violation of legal responsibilities you have to protect such data.
If you want your site to run smoothly and be free from interference from government and law enforcement, security is crucial. It’s not something you can be relaxed on, even if you think no one would take an interest in your site.
After all, it’s the ones who think they can’t get hacked or won’t get hacked that fall first. Not because their hubris draws out attackers, but because they fail to take the basic steps that can prevent a security meltdown. [Read more…] about Your Site, Your Security, Your Responsibility
Four Free Social Media WordPress Plugins
WordPress is a great CMS that makes it easy to have a blog, business website, or other online presence. There are thousands of free and paid plugins available that can help webmasters, marketers, and bloggers customize their website to serve whatever purpose is needed.
One type of plugin that is very popular with many WordPress users who write blog posts and other content are social media sharing plugins. These allow website visitors that ability to share blog posts and pages on their social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn. These plugins can be customized to only include certain social networks and may also allow site owners to only display sharing options for certain social media sites.
Sociable: Sociable has over 1.8 million downloads and is rated 4.1/5 stars. It offers a variety of options, including different icon colors and sharing layouts. The Sociable Skyscraper places the sharing buttons to the side of the content, where as Sociable Classic places the icons at the end of the blog post or page.
ShareBar: ShareBar is similar to the Sociable Skyscraper layout and allows users to customize the order of the icons in the ShareBar. Users can also add custom buttons that can input custom code. For instance, if Pinterest is needed, adding the Pinterest button code can generate a Pin It button into the custom button field.
Shareholic: Shareaholic offers a variety of options and perks for users, including social analytics, content recommendations for readers, and the majority of main social networks. Installation and set-up is fast and easy. Shareaholic offers 3 different layouts– Top Bar, Classic Bookmarks, and the “Sharing is Sexy” option, which features hovering animation.
Lockerz/AddtoAny: This plugin has almost 2.4 million downloads and is very popular, as the AddtoAny widget was one of the first social sharing widgets available for website installation for free. This plugin is available for localization for 19 languages and includes the majority of social media networks and websites.
These are just some of the options available for WordPress website owners that want to add the capability for their users and readers to share their content. By making it as easy as possible, your content is more likely to be shared, thus increasing traffic and readership. Become the example for your readers and users by utilizing these sharing plugins yourself on your own accounts after content is published.
Top 20 Reasons Why We Need WordPress for Blogs
Initially when WordPress was launched it was a big flop, however, with passing time it has become the most widely used software for websites and particularly for blogging. WordPress offers a lot more than the few 5 to 10 benefits you normally hear about.
Before going into the detail why WordPress is a better tool for your blog, you must be aware what is exactly meant by WordPress. There is WordPress.com that is a free hosted blogging service similar to Blogger etc. and then there is WordPress.org that is the blogging software. We’ll talk about the top reasons of using the WordPress software here. [Read more…] about Top 20 Reasons Why We Need WordPress for Blogs
Top 5 Plugins to Backup WordPress Site to Cloud Storage
With sharp rise in the online business competition, nearly every company either smaller or larger needs a platform on the internet. Internet has brought some sort of revolution for the business establishments and many of them have got WordPress websites to market the services, products and solutions. WordPress is considered as the topmost and greatly reputed tool to create your blogs and its CMS services have attracted millions of websites till date. Backing up your website or blog periodically is the need of the hour and you will simply require some elegant tools and plugins that might help in accomplishing this task. The tools mentioned below are of external type and it indicates that bloggers and website owners will have to back the site manually. [Read more…] about Top 5 Plugins to Backup WordPress Site to Cloud Storage
How to Write a Proper Copyright Notice
Even if you are completely unfamiliar with copyright law, you’re probably aware that most websites have some kind of copyright notice in their footer and, as such, you probably should too.
However, anything worth doing is worth doing well and, while a copyright notice isn’t particularly difficult, doing it wrong may create confusion or, in worst-case scenarios, thorny issues that may have to be cleared up should a dispute arise.
So how do you create a solid, functional copyright notice? There’s no one set formula on how to do it, but the best notices all have a set of components and convey several pieces of important information.
With that in mind, the best place to start answering the question is by looking at the purpose a copyright notice serves and how it can serve it. [Read more…] about How to Write a Proper Copyright Notice
The Best Free iPhone Applications for Social Media Marketing
More and more consultants and professionals in the internet and social media marketing realm are using their smartphones (especially the Apple iPhone) to stay connected and maintain their online presence. There are several social media marketing applications available for the iPhone for free that can allow a social media marketing consultant or professional to stay connected and updated on the go.
Popular Social Media Applications
Twitter: Twitter allows the user to add multiple accounts and switch between them. You cannot post on two accounts at one time. However, the interface is easy to use and loads quickly.
Facebook: The newest Facebook update allows users to write wall posts and publish photos onto the pages they are administrator of, but they cannot delete posts or comments.
LinkedIn: However, the LinkedIn application only allows for one account to be logged in at a time. The LinkedIn application is good for reading posts by other users, accepting requests, and sending InMail. Users cannot edit groups or company profiles.
Blogging Applications
WordPress: The iPhone WordPress application has a lot of versatility and allows users to add, update, and view posts on multiple blogs through the one application. Users can also view and edit pages and approve blog post comments. Additionally, if users have added the stats plugin, they are able to view basic stats about their blog, including traffic.
Tumblr: Tumblr iPhone app users can post photos, video, audio, quotes, links, and text from their phone, as well as handle multiple blogs via the single application. Tumblr posts can also be scheduled or tweets can be customized. Users can search the iPhone contacts to see if they have a Tumblr account.
Blogger: The Blogger application allows users to monitor and edit more than one blog and add photos instantly to posts. Users can also labels, save drafts, or automatically publish posts.
Social Media Marketing Applications
Sendible: The Sendible user via an iPhone experiences a similar interface to the online computer version of Sendible.com. Users can send the same message from multiple accounts as well as schedule when messages go out. Sendible has a free account version, as well as paid monthly membership, depending on usage and accounts.
Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck is similar to Sendible, but most users use the free version of this service.
These are just a sample of the several iPhone applications that are available for internet and social media marketing professionals.
What are your favorite iPhone applications?
5 Great Security Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Be Using
Online security is always a topic of hot debate. Not a day goes by where someone isn’t hacked, whether they own a small site or a hugely popular one. The problem is that the more popular your site becomes, the more of a target it can be to those with unsavory intentions.
WordPress websites are often targeted by hackers due to a lack of security. The problem, however, is that there are dozens of great security plugins you could be using to ensure the safety of your layout and contents. Here are 7 to keep in mind. [Read more…] about 5 Great Security Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Be Using