Is Your WordPress Website Secure?

If you have a WordPress blog, you should take precautions to ensure that yours is as secure as possible against hackers. If a hacker gets into your blog, he can potentially redirect your hits elsewhere or mess with the code.

So what steps should you take? First of all, there are some simple things you can do. Always upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, as this usually fixes vulnerabilities that hackers are exploiting. Next, be sure you are changing your password periodically. And don’t forget to back up your blogs and try installing an IDS (Intrusion Detection System). You might try the WordPress Database Backup or another backup plug-in to help make sure you have your data backed up in case a hacker messes with it.

There are other plug-ins you can download to improve your security. One of them will change your username from the default “admin” to one of your choice. It’s called Change Admin Username, and the reason it’s helpful is because the hacker knows that every WordPress user has the username “admin” by default, so he can focus on cracking the password. If you change your username, then that’s one extra hurdle for them. Luckily, it’s a free and easy-to-use little plug-in.

Another helpful plug-in allows you to keep track of all the login attempts for your blog and the IP addresses of each one. This is called the Login Logger, and it helps because it lets you know sooner rather than later whether someone besides you is trying to login to your blog. At the very least, you’ll know you should change your password.

It would also help to have the WordPress Security Scan plug-in, because it works like an anti-virus scanner to make sure that you’re secure. It looks for security vulnerabilities and malicious code, and will suggest the right actions to take to fix them. This is another layer of protection to prevent future damage if a hacker hacked into your blog or will try to in the future.

While each one of these plug-ins and methods is a viable way of improving your WordPress blog’s security by themselves, using all of them in tandem is the most effective way to minimize vulnerability to a hacker. This is definitely not an exhaustive list of plug-ins that can protect you, but it is an excellent place to start. Happy blogging!

Let These FREE WordPress Video Tutorials Show You The Ropes

I made these videos a couple years ago to help some of my subscribers learn how to use WordPress. So for those of you just starting out with WordPress be sure to check out these videos. You’ll learn how to optimize your WordPress site for the search engines and much more! I also included a video tutorial for the free open-source, photoshop alternative called GIMP. These tutorials were created under the name WebsiteNoob FYI.

Let me know what you think, cheers!

Download The WebsiteNoob eBook
Getting Started” Video Tutorial
“Fantastico Installation” Video Tutorial
“Admin Area Walk-Through” Video Tutorial
Install Plugins (pt1) Video Tutorial
Install Plugins (pt2) Video Tutorial
“Theme Generator Tutorial” Video Tutorial
“Adding Content” Video Tutorial
“Updating WordPress” Video Tutorial
GIMP Video Tutorial

6 Ways To Make Money With Your Website Or Blog

Times are tough for a lot of people right now. This is why it is crucial that you work smarter instead of harder. Below are a few ideas to get you started making money on-line using your website or blog.

1. Promote a product-One of the easiest ways to get started making money on-line is by becoming an affiliate of a particular product and then using your website or blog to promote it. Becoming an affiliate simply means for every product you are responsible for selling, you get a commission.

Your job is to send folks to the affiliate website which will then work to sell the visitor the product. It can be hard work, but once you get the hang of it, you can make some consistent money using this technique.

2. Build a list-This goes a long with promoting a product, but takes it one step further. You see, it’s a proven fact that most people will not buy what you’re selling upon first visit. However, if you’re offering something for FREE then many more people are going to take action, even if it means they have to enter their email address.

This of course gives you the opportunity to follow up with your prospect via email and build a relationship while simultaneously soft-selling them, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact on your bottom line.

3. Sell Advertising Space-Website traffic is valuable, and if you are getting lots of visitors to your site, businesses will pay to get in front of that crowd. Simply charging others to advertise on your site is a great way to monetize your online efforts. Banner or text ads sell easily on website that has consistent traffic.

4. Promote Yourself-If you offer professional services, another great way to monetize your blog or website is to sell yourself. Let others know about what you do and how you can help them. Many people have used their personal blogs and websites to develop significant client bases just by showcasing their talents and services and letting others know how they can be hired.

5. Charge Subscription Fees-A website worth visiting on a regular basis just might be one worth paying for. Depending on the type of content you are offering, your core audience may wish to pay to become an exclusive member of the site. This can be done by offering upgraded features that are only available to those that pay and will help to give paying members the feeling of being in a special club. A membership based website can, in time, turn into a significant source of ongoing revenue. Keep the content fresh and active and your members happy and reap the rewards!

6. Build it, Sell it!-Some people like to have the job done FOR them…so, building a website or blog and developing regular traffic and then selling the website or blog is a great way to earn money on-line. Depending on how in depth and content rich the site is coupled with how many regular visitors it gets will determine the price but websites that are built and sold regularly command thousands of dollars to interested buyers.

WordPress “Related Posts” Plugin Is A No-Brainer

Yet another user-friendly WordPress plugin. It literally took less than a minute or two to install and it works pretty great right out of the box. It’s a no-brainer really. It offers up related posts to your blog visitors at the bottom of each post. Of course, since our blog is fairly new, there are some posts that have no “related posts”. This will change of course the bigger our site gets.

So what is the expected result from using a “related posts” plugin? We’re looking to increase the amount of time each visitor is on our website, by increasing the amount of posts/pages the visitor views. The longer a visitor is on your site, the more likely they’re going to return sometime in the near future. Simple as that!

Download “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” here!

WordPress “Redirect Page” Template Tutorial

There are instances where you want to publish a page in WordPress that when clicked on will direct them to another page either on your website or another website all together.

For example, with my website here I needed to have my “Home” page in the navigation take visitors to my homepage (surprise!). Well, in order to make this happen I used the following tutorial.

KeyFramesAndCodes.com writes:

“The very nature of WordPress demands that you work within it’s infrastructure in order to maintain flexibility. Sometimes, though, the structure of your pages demand that you need to operate outside of this constraint.

This template lets you specify a single URL as the page content, then as the page loads, the template automatically redirects the page to this new location…“

Click here to view the tutorial at KeyFramesAndCodes.com!