A client of mine told me about Gravity Forms and I have been using it on my site for the past year or so.  I am thrilled with the results. You can see examples of several of the forms and questionnaires that I use on my “Contact Page“.

The plugin is sooooo easy to use and you can have an unlimited number of forms on one site.  Here is a short video done by Rocketgenius (the creators of the Gravity Forms plugin for WordPress) that will give you more information on how it works.

Here is a list of some of the features that the Gravity Forms plugin offers:

Easy to Use.  Quickly build and design your WordPress forms using the form editor. Select your fields, configure your options, and easily embed forms on your WordPress powered site using the built in tools.

Multi-Page Forms.  The page break field allows you to break up your form into multiple pages and even show a progress bar that let’s your user know where they are in the process.

Form Settings.  Easily configure the title, description, settings and confirmation message using the form settings.

Limit Entries.  Running a contest and only want to accept 50 entries? Easily limit how many entries a form will accept and display a custom message when that limit is reached.

Standard Fields.  Need a text field, paragraph field, drop-downs, checkboxes and some radio buttons? We’ve got you covered. Our standard fields consist of all the major form field types.

Advanced Fields.  Sometimes standard form fields just don’t cut the mustard. That’s where the advanced fields come in…. from capturing names, addresses and phone numbers to email addresses, website URL’s and even file uploads.

Schedule Forms.  Only want a form available for a limited period of time? Set a start and end date to limit form access and display a custom message when the form has expired.

Pricing Fields.  Gravity Forms makes it’s easy to create order forms. Order forms can incorporate pricing specific fields to allow your users to make selections and generate a total based on product and option selections.

The Gravity Forms plugin is one of the best options when it comes to website forms and questionnaires for a WordPress website or blog.  I highly recommend it.  It currently costs only $39 for one website, but you can have multiple forms on that one website.  They also have a Business Plan for $99 where you can have up to 3 websites using the plugin.  I would definitely check it out.  It will definitely add value and functionality to your site.

I am sure you are feeling violated and wondering how in the world the hackers could get in.  I am sure you thought your site was secure and protected.

WordPress is a common hack entry since it is an open source platform and so many people use it.  It is easy for hackers to find things in common to look for like wp_ database prefixes or “admin” usernames.

I am not a hacker so I do not know HOW to hack a website but hackers are out there and they show up in various ways.

How do hackers get in?

• Through a hosting server.  (though the hosting company will never admit to that).
• Through Spyware and Malware – Hackers can infect your PC and steal your passwords.
• Through vulnerable WordPress databases, plugin files, and regular text/html files – this is usually the #1 cause and that is why it is extremely important to keep wordpress and plugins up to date.

Basically, if you have a computer connected to the outside world and someone wants to get in bad enough, they will find a way.  Not too reassuring, I know, but at least it CAN be fixed if it does happen to you.

Evidence of a WordPress site that has been hacked:

• Warning Window when trying to enter your site.  Google will often blacklist your site and they put up a warning that says “This site could be Malicious”.
• Website home page is completely modified with someone else’s “message”
• Website is being re-routed to another site (such as porn)
• Suspicious Content – You may notice content on your website that you did not put there.
• Stats Change – You may notice that that your site is showing up under keywords that have nothing to do with your site.
• SEO Change – You may notice that your search engine ranking drops significantly and rapidly.

What hackers leave behind:

Hackers often leave behind script code and links that have been embedded into pages and posts using non-visible code.  This can be called a “php injection attack”.  In other words, some evil person with too much time on their hands wrote a program to destroy your program files.  Do not take this personally.  Your website was not specifically targeted.  This can happen to ANYONE.

But cleaning up these type of attacks can be a HUGE pain in the neck, especially if your database has been compromised and you do not have a backup.  We had one site where we spent hours removing links from hundreds of wordpress posts.  It cost the client hundreds of dollars.  This can be prevented!

Solutions to being hacked:

• Clean up your data.
• Change your passwords.
• Upgrade your external programs (like WordPress, Joomla, plugins, photo galleries, etc) when upgrades are available.
• Notify your webhost and have them do a site restore from a backup done PRIOR to the hacking.  Please note that there are times when the hosting company does their backup AFTER the hacking which replaces the previous clean backup.  It is always best to have your own clean backup of both the site files and database saved on your computer.
• Run a Scan -  http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/
• Remove corrupt files
• Clean out any bad scripting code

Hackers will never stop finding ways to attack, unfortunately, but we can do a lot of things to prevent our WordPress sites from being hacked.  This is not fool proof but it is highly suggested.

Preventions from being hacked:

• Don’t use ADMIN as a user id.
• Always keep your upgrades current.
• Change passwords regularly (wordpress, hosting, and email passwords).  Use password generators to create passwords and then use different ones everywhere.
• Change the wp_ database prefix to something else.
• Restrict access to your wp-admin folder and wp-config.php file using .htaccess
• Keep a backup of your site files and your WordPress database (sql file) on someplace OTHER than your website server. (If they can hack your website, they can hack your backups too.)

I hope that this post will help you better understand how hackers can get in, the evidences that a site has been hacked, what hackers leave behind, solutions to fix a site that has been hacked and preventions that you can take to protect your site from hackers.

If your WordPress site has indeed been hacked, we are here to help you get it fixed and get your site back up and running again and help protect you from future attacks.

Please Fill out the form below and someone will get back to you within 24 hours.

What is the Difference Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

WordPress.com is free for the basic setup which includes your own special url (ex. www.mysitename.wordpress.com) and you also get 3 GB of space for storing your content and images.   But remember, THEY store your content, so in other words – they OWN your content.

WordPress.com is great if you want to start a simple blog or practice blogging online.  It does offer several nice looking themes and will definitely get you online and indexed with search engines – just not in the same capacity as WordPress.org.

With WordPress.org, your blog or web site is hosted on your own server through a hosting company like HostGator (affiliate link). WordPress itself is blogging software that you can tweek and play with and place blogs onto your own domain names. Therefore it will cost you money to buy a domain and host it but you can then do whatever you like with it, such as upgrade it, theme it any way you like, add/subtract whatever plugins you like and add whatever content, links, or ads you decide are appropriate.

Using WordPress.com is like you are swimming in the community swimming pool – you have to follow their rules – no jumping, no diving, etc.  In contrast, a self-hosted site, like WordPress.org where you have total control, you pretty much make up your own rules of how to swim in the pool. If you want to do a cannon ball, it’s entirely up to you!  LOL

Factors to Consider When Choosing Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com:

The following are some factors you may want to consider before you decide to start your blog on a paid host with WordPress.org or the “free” option with WordPress.com.

• Monetization and Advertisements: WordPress.com does not allow you to include advertisements of any kind. This will keep you from earning an income by offering advertising on your site.  Also your ability to share affiliate links is greatly diminished.

• Customization: WordPress.com provides a limited amount of theme options.  WordPress.org has an endless amount of themes to choose from or you can hire a web designer to create a custom theme to fit your needs.

• Knowledge: WordPress.org requires a little more technical knowledge than WordPress.com, however it is still simple to use once you master the admin panel.

• Lack of Ownership: With a WordPress.com site, you do not own your content.  Your content is hosted on THEIR server.  You are also required to have “.wordpress.com” at the end of the domain. So, instead of your site being “thisismysite.com”, it would be “thisismysite.wordpress.com”.  Having a domain like this is often viewed as unprofessional.  There is an option to pay a monthly $15 fee to use your own domain, but if you are going to do that, then you might as well go with the self hosted option so you have mo0re flexibility.
  

While WordPress.com is a good option to get started, if you are serious about blogging, desire a professional looking website or both, WordPress.org is definitely a better option for you. WordPress.Org  is very flexible when compared to WordPress.com; and the option to build a site that conveys your message effectively makes the customizations well worth the effort.

Quick Comparison Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

Pros of WordPress.com

• It’s Free!
• Large selection of free layouts
• Automatic site upgrades, backups etc
• Possible traffic from the .com network
• Limited features make it easy for technically challenged

As a graphic and web designer who specializes in WordPress site builds, I highly recommend that you go with the “self-hosted” WordPress option (WordPress.org).  If you have any additional questions about the differences or capabilities and need further advice on which platform to choose, feel free to Email Me directly.

TimThumb is an image resizing feature used in many WordPress plugins and themes including Thesis and many others. The vulnerability that was reported allows third parties to upload and run malicious PHP files in the TimThumb directory. Once the code is uploaded and executed, the site will become  compromised.  This in turn runs you the risk of being blacklisted by Google and other search engines.  And getting the scripts removed and your site restored is not an easy task.

Here are a few steps you can follow to help protect yourself:

1.  Get rid of any old themes and plugins that you are not using.  Even if they are inactive, if they contain the timthumb.php file then you are potentially at risk.

2. Schedule regular backups of your site using a plugin like WP DB Backup. This particular plugin will back up your database at your selected time frame and send the backup to your email. You can select from once a month, once a week, daily or even hourly backups.

3. Install and activate the TimThumb Vulnerability Scanner plugin that was recently released by Peter of CodeGarage. This plugin will scan your entire wp-content directory for any outdated, insecure versions of the TimThumb script and it will provide a way to automatically upgrade them with one simple click.

These steps are vital to protecting your site from becoming victim to the new hackers that have emerged finding the holes in coding. If you have any questions or would like to have us help you in backing up, updating, and installing  plugins to keep your site safe – please Contact Us today!  We offer a couple different WordPress Maintenance packages which also includes checking for any TimThumb vulnerabilities.

Tips for Finding A Good WordPress Hosting Company

• Step One: Research the possibilities. Look for dependable hosts based on ease of use, reliability, longevity and most of all customer service. You want a website host that will be with you for the long haul so you don’t have to ever switch hosts.

• Step Two: The elimination process.  There are few that don’t support WordPress, so you really need to find out ahead of time if they offer support for WordPress sites.  Some may claim that they do, but then when you run into a problem in the future, you will find out the hard way that they actually cannot help.  So do your research first and ask others who have WordPress sites.  If you can take a trial or explore their administrative panel before signing up, do so because you want to make sure it is something you can work with or learn easily.  Make sure it’s easy for you to use and understand or that they offer tutorials to help you get started. If not, eliminate them. There are too many other user friendly hosts out there than to bother with one that has a steep learning curve.

• Step Three: Compare and Choose. Assuming you now have a short lists of possibilities, compare costs. Which one is the most budget friendly? Some people also recommend testing the customer service at this point. Ask a question and see how they respond. Are they prompt? Courteous? Was the customer service process easy to use and understand?

Here is a breakdown of a few popular hosting companies for WordPress:

• HostGator: Hostgator hosting service is my FIRST suggestion.  They are reliable, reasonably priced, environmentally friendly, and best of all, their customer  service is excellent! With prices starting at $4.95 per month,  it is worth noting that all web hosting plans with a 45 day money back guarantee and 99.9% uptime guarantee. Each package comes with unlimited disk space and bandwidth as well.  This one is my personal fave.  If you click the ad on the bottom of my right sidebar and sign up, I get some nice affiliate love!

• BlueHost: Starting at $6.95 with unlimited storage and bandwidth, BlueHost provides a wide variety of services suitable for the needs of individuals and small to medium sized business owners. For anyone looking for the best hosting plan at a very affordable price, they offer a great solution. With a quality customer service department, free demos, and a host of awards for customer service and support, this is definitely one company you should consider for all your web hosting needs. This great company was also voted Best Web Hosting for 2011.

• HostMonster: Like Bluehost and HostGator, HostMonster offers unlimited domains, space and bandwidth with a starting price of $7.95. After a visit to the HostMoster’s professional looking website, you will quickly discover why they are among the best. Now in their 11th year of business, HostMonster provides hosting packages for businesses and individuals that want high-powered, but affordable web hosting services.

Finally, before making your final choice, give anyone your credit card info, or buy a hosting package, you want to be sure to read the terms of service. Once you’ve made your decision, you’re then ready to direct your domain, set up your WordPress site, create a custom design, add content, and start blogging.  And if you are still not sure or need help getting started, we can help you every step of the way!

One of my favorite plugins that I always add on sites that I build for clients is the All in One SEO plugin.  This allows you to add meta info for your homepage such as site title, description, and keywords.  You can also check the option to use categories and tags as keywords and you can go even further by adding meta info to every page on your WordPress website.

I am currently working with a client who is interested in getting her site ranked higher in the search engines and she has asked for some advice on how she can do that.  I decided to do some research in preparation for our phone consult and I found a great article by www.sitesketch101.com called “The 15 Best SEO Tips for WordPress in 2011″.  The writer shared some awesome ideas and I just had to share them with you as well.  I chose 12 out of the 15 tips.

1. Use an SEO Plugin
2. Add Fresh New Content on a Regular Basis - this is pretty self explanatory.  Add content that will engage the reader and keep them on your site longer and maybe even click through your site to other pages or posts.
3. Link out to Relevant / Informative Content – this is what I am doing here by linking to the article that has these awesome seo tips for WordPress
4. Use Keywords Throughout Your Articles – keyword refers to the word or phrase that you hope will be listed on a search engine.  So, for example, I would like to be listed under “WordPress SEO”, so I need to try to use variations of that term or phrase within this post.
5. Use Keywords in the Post Title
6. Optimize Your URL Structure / Permalinks – I automatically set the permalink structure to “/%postname%/” when building a site.  You should never change this if you already have an established site.  That can screw things up big time if you don’t know what you are doing.  But for a new WordPress site, it is very important to set the permalink structure BEFORE you do anything else.
7. Optimize Images In Posts – Add image titles and alt text that describes both the image and the content of the article.
8. Provide a Google Sitemap – Google likes it when you provide them with an easy-to-read overview of all the pages on your site. The easiest and most effective way to deliver this much needed SEO tool is to simply install the WordPress plugin called Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin will do all the hard work for you and automatically update every time you add new posts to your site.
9. Interlink Keywords Between Articles – Link to one of your old posts within a new post.  This increases the page views on your site and encourages people to read other articles of yours.
10. Cache Your Site Content -  WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache are WordPress plugins that allow a generated page to be stored as a real static page so that the next person to view it doesn’t have to wait for it to be created. This drastically reduces the time it takes a viewer to see your pages and increases the possibility of keeping more readers. This means that your content will always be lightning fast.
11. Recycle Old Posts and Revive Old Permalinks – The art of recycling an old post simply means that you take an article that was previously published, let’s say five or six months ago, and add new life and excitement to it and republishing it. If you want to keep growing the ranking authority of your most powerful articles from last year then be sure to leave the permalink alone. This allows you to bring in a fresh wave of links to a page that already ranks in Google.
12. Link to Related Posts: Install WordPress Related Posts Plugin which adds  4 or 5 similar posts at the bottom of each your posts. This is a great way to guide your readers to more of your articles on similar topics and it’s a terrific way to guide search engines around your site.

I hope these tips will help you to take your WordPress site to the next level.  The last thing you want to do is to spend money on having a custom WordPress site designed and not take advantage of some of the simple things that can be done to help boost your site’s seo optimization status.

If you are currently using WordPress and you are not sure if you are doing everything you need to do for your site’s SEO, then feel free to Contact Me Today so that I can help you get your site to where it needs to be.

What happened?

Well, remember that little lone plugin that you avoided?  You forgot to configure it?  Well, that is the answer to wordpress spam comment problems.  It stops the spam right in its tracks.

What is the Akismet Plugin all about?

It is the Akismet plugin and it is a standard default plugin included in the WordPress installation that helps you to eliminate all of those silly unwanted spam comments you get on your blog posts.

This handy plugin is also known as Automatic Kismet, and it is a spam filtering service created by Automatic. For those who do not know, Automatic is the corporation behind the WordPress name, brand, and software.

The main reason why you need this great plugin is that Akismet attempts to filter link spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings using its own algorithm. In technical terms, the algorithm combines the information about spam captured on various blogs and then blocks the future spam using the spam rules developed from the collected data. In laymen’s terms, Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

It is well worth the brief moment to do it and avoid years of spamming chaos. Akismet does charge for API keys for businesses.  But they do offer FREE API keys for personal sites and blogs.  Here is a breakdown:

To date Akismet has blocked over 24 billion Spam Comments.

When all is said and done, you need to keep your WordPress site from being taken over by spammers and without spam protection, it is pretty easy for your site to become a spammer heaven. This is why you need to go back into your site, activate the plugin and then go over to Akismet.com and grab your API key to configure the plugin to keep your site protected from spam.

Planning

The first thing your designer will want to do is communicate and brainstorm with you.  Some will want to speak by phone while others will send questionnaires and work with you via email.  As long as there is an open line of communication and you have checked the designer out, either one is fine. The designer should want to discuss the details of what you want, your goals for the site, and any design ideas. It should be their goal to take your vision and bring it to life. Be prepared to answer lots of questions.

Choosing a theme

Whoever your designer is, they should be familiar with different WordPress theme options, so that they can help you choose the best one for your design and site goals.  A good theme will have the capabilities to maintain your site and share your message with the world in a unique way.

WordPress Database Installation

Anyone who knows about WordPress customization should know about WordPress installations. They should know how to make it secure and as stable as it can be so that your site is fully functioning.

Theme Installation

A designer will go into your site and upload your theme of choice. There are two options for this: dashboard or FTP (either way is safe and secure). If for some reason the dashboard option does not work, the FTP which is more of a manual option will work just as well and sometimes even better.

Plugin Installation

The designer will already have a set of standard plugins that they add to every site. These plugins should cover areas like security, spam protection, SEO, and social media. With a set of standard plugins for each of these areas, it will do nothing but help your site to grow, be safe, and bring in traffic.

Graphics

When working with a designer, their graphic work should be a major part of the process.  They should be able to provide you with relevant brand catchy graphics that fit your site goals. The graphics / branding will usually determine the colors and style of the overall site, along with your ideas.

WordPress Theme Customizations

Once your theme has been chosen, the designer will take all the components mentioned already and tie them together.  The graphics, plugins, theme, and even the installation all play a part in the customization of your WordPress website or blog. The designer will add the widgets necessary to work with the plugins. They will work on each part of your site to make sure that it is working up to standard without any issues.

Additional Options

Every WordPress customization designer will have some additional options to share with you that can help you enhance your site. Or you may have an idea or two along the way. This is where communication is important. You can add options like featured slider, video, and custom social media icons to help your site pop with life. Just make sure the options are relevant and necessary.

If you are looking to create a WordPress website or blog and would like to discuss your ideas with a designer, please Contact Us today!  Click here to see examples of our WordPress Customization Design work.

Easy Page Creation

An important factor in creating sites built on the WordPress platform (that makes it excellent for search engine optimization) is the ease by which pages can be added. For example, one simple post becomes an additional page to your website. When you make sure that those posts are optimized properly, search engines will index them and allow you a certain degree of power from that pages internal linking. In short the more pages / posts you have, the more important search engines will consider you.

SEO Plugins

You can extend the power of WordPress for SEO with Plugins. There are numerous SEO WordPress Plugins that broaden the Search Engine Optimization capabilities of WordPress. For example the All-In-One SEO Plugin will automatically generate description meta for Pages and Posts as well as allowing for the adding of title and keyword meta. You will even find some themes, such as Headway and the Studiopress themes which come with SEO capabilities included right in the themes themselves.

Other SEO plugins to consider are Keyword Statistics, Zemanta, Automatic SEO Links, Robots Meta, SEO Slug, and more.  Check out this article to find out more about SEO plugin options.

Easy Navigation

Another reason why the Search Engine robots love WordPress is because it is very simple to index and find their way around a WordPress Website. WordPress includes various types of hyperlinks and information that signal to the Search bots what the content is all about. Whether including tags, keywords, image titles and various other meta, WordPress includes all this Search Engine Optimization information by default.

Create Pretty Permalinks

Permalinks on your website can be ugly and not SEO friendly. However, WordPress includes the option to create Pretty Permalinks. In plain English this means that WordPress has the ability to automatically add a human readable URL to each Page or Post; so instead of your urls looking like “example.com/?p=123”, it will look like “example.com/seo-for-wordpress”.  There are other options for creating permalinks but choosing this option is often best. How pretty is that!

Because of the power of WordPress for SEO it makes the WordPress platform a fully functional Content Management System (CMS).  WordPress continues to be the first choice in SEO friendly Web software and this is one of the reasons that tens of millions of Sites use this free software.

Even if your computer crashes, yes, that information is still on your hosting server, but what if the server goes down or the data gets corrupted?  And sorry to say it folks, but it CAN happen unfortunately.

Your hosting provider will usually provide a backup option and you definitely need to find out how often they backup your site’s data and how to retrieve it. Keep those instructions safe so you can refer to them.

But, backing up your site is not just the responsibility of the hosting provider. You should also have your own backup system plan.

The Risks of Not Backing Up Your WordPress Site

If you take the risk of not backing up your site, you also take the risk of losing much, if not all of your data. It goes beyond just your blog posts. Without important elements of your WordPress site, you risk losing not only the words you wrote but the hard work and/or money you put into creating your site.

Something as simple as a plugin that is not updated can render your site useless and can cause your database to crash unexpectedly. Any number of things can cause your site to crash. The goal here is not to scare you but to educate you so that you will take the necessary steps to backup your website.

Backing Up Your WordPress Site

One option for backing up your site is the cpanel or the phpMyAdmin through your hosting provider. There is a backup wizard that helps you to go through backing up your various databases.

You can also use a plugin to backup your WordPress site.  There are several WordPress plugins that handle the task of creating a database back-up. I’ve examined most of them and tested the ones that look most promising and they get the job done.

Basically, we want a plugin that does the following:

• It should offer an Automatic Database Back-Up with a set schedule – This is not a task that should be reliant on our mem0ry to accomplish. It needs to be automatic.

• It should have the option to Email you the backup – Most back-up plugins will store the back-up file on your web host’s server, but that’s not quite good enough. We also want a copy stored somewhere OFF the server in case the entire server goes down or loses data.

Some good WordPress Backup plugins include:

• WP DB Backup – With this plugin you can backup to your computer or your email.

• WP Time Machine: This plugin gives you the option to backup your site into offsite services like DropBox and Amazon S3 or via an FTP program like FileZilla right to your computer’s hard drive.

How Often To Backup Your Site

How often you should backup your WordPress website is based upon how often you make changes, upload new posts, or add elements to your WordPress website or blog.

The main / core files of your website, like your WordPress Theme files, should be backed up after you have completed any major changes. It does not have to be backed up again until you make more changes.

The DATABASE needs to be backed up anywhere from once a week to once a month, depending upon how frequently and how much content you add to your site. Once a month is a good idea but once a week is even better for those who add a lot of content.

WordPress Site Back-up Help

We have many clients that we work with on a regular basis to keep their site’s backed up and ultimately protected if something was to go wrong.  And if anything were to happen we can then use those saved files and get their site back up and running as it was before the issue.

For $35 we offer a website back-up service where we do a full site back-up via FTP, which includes saving the entire web directory and database files.  Once the files are saved, we email you a link where you can download the files to save onto your computer.  We will also set-up a database back-up plugin on your site which will automatically schedule the database back-up and send the files directly to you via email.

If you are interested in having us help you please Contact Us Today!