Design Your WordPress Website

So, you’ve gone through a lot of trouble and effort to get your business website looking just the way you want it.

Don’t forget to make it safe! You’ve probably heard about the increased risk of hacking, data theft, and web attacks, but there is a lot you can do to protect your website.

There are some key measures you can take to minimize your risk and reduce your website’s vulnerability.

When it comes to plug-ins you should:

1. Minimize the risk from plug-ins

• Experts say that vulnerable plug-ins are the top way hackers can gain access to WordPress sites.
• Keep the number of plug-ins to a minimum. You don’t need that many, tempting as it might be!
• Delete any plug-ins you’re not using and keep the others updated.
• Check and double-check plug-ins before you download them to make sure you’re getting them from a reliable source.
• Remove plug-ins that haven’t been updated in over two years, and regularly check to see if your plug-ins are current. Check the WordPress Directory to make sure your plug-ins are still live.
• Use WordPress Security plug-ins to detect threats, and block attackers and malware. Popular ones are Wordfence Security, iThemes Security, and All in One WP Security and Firewall.

2. Make it hard to log in as you

Using ‘admin’ as your username, or having a weak password is like leaving your front door open. It’s almost inviting hackers in!

Make sure you don’t use the default ‘admin’ username.

Think of a unique and difficult username to guess. Similarly, come up with a strong password using a combination of letters, capital letters, symbols, and numbers between 10 and 15 characters long.

If you find this difficult, you can use Strong Password Generator to make one for you.

And don’t forget to change your password regularly. Schedule it as a regular business task, so you don’t forget.

3. Make your website HTTPS

Changing your website to HTTPS encrypts the connection between your web server and your web browser protecting your data from attacks.

HTTPS improves your Google rankings!

4. Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication protects your website against an attack that tries unlimited combinations of usernames and passwords until the hacker gets into the
site.

Adding Google Authenticator to your website will add this feature automatically.

5. Backup and update

Doing regular backups and updates will keep your website data safe, so even if the worst happens, and you are hacked, you’ll be able to get your site back as soon as possible.

5 Things to Look for in a WordPress Theme

It’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed when you’re setting up your WordPress website.

There are so many decisions to make about colors, designs, fonts, and graphics.

Having lots of themes to choose from makes it a bit easier, but how do you choose the best theme for your website?

After all, the theme is the face of your WordPress site, and the image it conveys about you and your business plays an important role in how your potential clients and even search engines perceive
it.

Here are some things you should keep in mind to make sure you get the theme that is the right fit for your business.

1. Keep it simple

Simplicity and an uncluttered design are key for a business website. You don’t want anything that will distract from your core message.

On the contrary, the design layout and look should support your message, make it easy for readers to find the information they need, and help you get new business and subscribers.

2. Flexibility

Whatever design you choose, make sure it is responsive across multiple devices.

Visitors should be easily able to navigate and read your website whether they’re on a cellphone, tablet, laptop, or computer.

3. Consistency

If you already have a business logo or design, choose a design that is consistent with your look and branding.

4. Make it SEO friendly

You may not realize that the theme you choose can affect your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) capability.

It’s no good having a website that looks great and has fantastic content if the search engines can’t pick it up.

Check the description of the theme to make sure it’s optimized for SEO.

5. Good reviews

If you find a theme that feels right to you and it checks out on the simplicity, flexibility, consistency, and SEO optimization fronts, look at the reviews before you hit the download button.

Users can leave up to 5-star ratings on the theme itself -and it’s also worth a scan of user forums to see if there are common problems.

Choosing the theme for your website is important, so it’s worth doing some research to find the right one for your business.

And you can play around with different themes to see what feels right. Use the preview button to see what they look like on your screen.

Tips To Understanding WordPress

WordPress is probably best known around the internet business world as a blogging software but in reality it is much more than that.

It also has amazing earning potential capabilities as well as a complete content management system.

If you are an affiliate marketer it can mean increased productivity and less site maintenance that you will have to perform over time.

If you are still trying to decide if WordPress marketing is still for you stop and take some time to think of the following tips.

Flexibility:

WordPress is a very flexible program to work with. No matter if you are choosing to use a post or promoting a product WordPress is able to do both of these.

You also have the option to choose whether you will allow comments on your product page which will allow user generated content on your website which will appear in the form of reader’s comments.

It will also allow you to further customize by choosing if you would prefer to have either a static generated page so that you are allowed to highlight certain products or your mailing lists.

Themes:

You need to remember you only have one chance to impress the visitors to your site.

If they are not impressed they will simply not return. With the WordPress software you have the ability to upload the theme of your choice and click a button and you’re done.

This saves a lot of time when you consider the option of picking theme after theme just to find the right one which is very time consuming.

The capabilities contained in word press make modifying your site simple and saves you loads of time.

You will be able to customize the look of your WordPress on whether your visitors will look at the home page, a category page, or a single entry page.

The choice is yours with a simple click of your mouse. This gives you the power to optimize each area of your site which will lead to higher conversion rates.

Plugins:

As most people know WordPress is considered a lightweight software program therefore it does not have a lot of capabilities that comes with it.

You can however add plugins to the software.

With these plugins it gives the WordPress program to do a number of different things including, create mailing lists, create affiliate links and track those links, and even allows you to import the affiliate product feeds directly to your site.

Author Management

One important factor of running your affiliate marketing site is learning when and how to delegate.

WordPress allows multiple authors you have the authority to easily have other people create as well as add content to your site without having to give out your personal administrative information to these other authors.

This will also not give them too much power to your site to where these other authors could just basically take over. They will only get enough power to get their job done and that is it.

Huge Community

Since WordPress is so popular that there are people all over the world who develop add-ons to the WordPress software. These add-ons can include new themes and plugins among others.

Some of these people also understand the intricate problems associated with WordPress and will be able to assist you if you would happen to encounter an error.

Along with the huge community around the world there are also books that will help you get started with installing and how to use the WordPress software effectively.

As you can see there are a variety of benefits that you can gain from using WordPress software.

What was once used for blogging has now grown into a very powerful program to help you create a site that will draw in the traffic and make money for you.