In the last six months we have experienced a wave of hackers getting into our custom WordPress author websites. The problem is that hackers have realized how popular WordPress sites are (internationally); as a result, many of them focus on finding weaknesses and hacking into thousands (gosh maybe millions) of sites. Less work—more payout. The good news is that we are more diligent in our efforts to make you aware of the importance of keeping your site updated. Why? Because while the bad programmers are working to get in, the good WordPress programmers are working to keep them out. The bad news is that updating your site can cause errors due to conflicts with custom php code and plug-ins. Stay with me.
You can very easily click the Please Update Now link from your WordPress Dashboard. And it will update, but what can also happen is that your blog can quit working, your theme can get wiped out, your plug-ins could stop working, and your blog could be rendered useless. It could also work seamlessly. So, how do you know what yours will do? Well, you don’t. Each site is unique to this equation. That is why it is so important to back up your website and your database content.
At Monkey C Media we do a complete backup of your site so we are ready for any hiccups, and after each update we do a physical check to ensure that everything works properly.
At the risk of boring you to pieces, here’s an example: (more…)
1. Craft a clear and concise message. As you write the copy that will entice and engage your potential buyers, use active language that will speak directly to their desires. Remember the WIIFM factor (What’s in it for me?). I guarantee that your audience will be asking themselves this question. Your text should immediately answer this and draw in your audience—making them want more, leading them toward your call-to-action where you convert traffic into revenue.
2. Write snappy headlines and pithy bullet points to grab your readers’ attention. These are the first copy a person will read—a well-written headline could be the difference between engaging your audience and getting the sale or losing your reader. For your bullet points concentrate an 3 to 5 benefits that will pique their interest and draw them deeper into your site.
3. Use imagery to create a visually enticing message. Carefully selected imagery will not only break up an otherwise overwhelming block of text, it will tell your readers what the text is about. Use images that support your message and they will be more likely to read further.
4. Color! Color is perhaps the most powerful tool an author can use to draw in an audience. Color effects us on a primal level and can often determine whether someone will buy or not buy. For example: red, yellow and orange are great action colors—you would use them for your BUY NOW button. Blues, greens and lavenders are calming colors and do not attract the eye immediately. Also – be sure you know your audience before you choose the color palette that will drive the feeling of your site—color evokes emotion.
5. Take advantage of your most valuable Real Estate. In Western Culture, we are a linear society and when we surf the web, we tend to read in a z-like fashion from the upper left hand corner of the screen to the right—these are two great places for your strongest message or your call-to-action. Perhaps a 3D image of your book with a buy now button beneath it.
6. Compile a list of relevant keywords phrases. These are words that your audience may input into a search engine when looking for a product like yours (even if they know nothing about you). Strategically sprinkle these words and phrases throughout your web site concentrating on well-written, relevant copy that will attract both your audience and the search engines.
7. Stay in touch! Offer a free report or a top ten list to entice people to sign up for your mailing list. The more often you connect with your audience, the more likely they will be to remember you and remember to tell others about you.
8. Develop a sales funnel. Your web site should lead your buyer toward a sale. An effective use of copy, images, color, and read more buttons will in fact create that funnel and convert traffic into revenue.
9. Track your traffic! Know where your audience is coming from and from which page they are exiting your web site. This is the only way you can gauge the effectiveness or your marketing efforts and know that your sales funnel IS—or, is NOT working.
10. Experiment! Sometimes a simple change can make a world of difference. By simply changing the placement, or color of a button, we have seen conversion rates triple. If you know your audience and you track your traffic consistently, you can strategically turn your web site into your most powerful marketing tool!
In general, we have become a get-it-now society. I think this is partially due to the amount of information we receive to our brains daily. You hear the phrase “I don’t have the bandwidth” all the time. People are overwhelmed. Mostly we are overwhelmed by choices. I bring this up because it is so important to remember this when you market your book. Have you made it possible for buyers to easily buy your book from anywhere on your website? Is your book even available yet?
This begs an entirely different question: When do you begin promoting your book?
The answer is: as soon as possible. But, here’s the key: (more…)
A Virus is embedding malware into WordPress powered websites:
Several of our client websites have been hacked this week. We discovered yesterday that they are attacking WordPress sites because of a vulnerability in the program—this has been addressed and a new version of WordPress is now available. Version 2.9.2. is the most recent version as of today May 18, 2010.
My team at Monkey C Media has spent the last two days scanning all of our client sites for any sign of this virus. Luckily only three of our sites were hacked. We were able to remove the malware without losing any content.
Who is Affected?
These hackers are not just attacking WordPress powered sites. They are injecting malware into PHP files. So, this means if you have a Drupal, Joomla, OsCommerce, or any other site that uses PHP files, you could be their next victim.
What should you do?
Upgrade your respective software to the most recent version.
Scan your site for alien files. You can contact your webmaster, or even your hosting service (like GoDaddy for example), or do it yourself.
Check your Users menu to make sure that no alien users have been created in your back-end that a hacker could use later after everything has been fixed—then it would start all over again.
Change your password. Make sure that you choose something that has a minimum of 8 digits including upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.
Ensure that your theme still works seamlessly, and that your plug-ins and SEO data still work properly
Install a backup feature on your site if you do not already have one and start backing up your content regularly
This particular virus is creating links within your site that will in turn link back to the hacker’s site thereby driving traffic and further improving their rankings. Google has been said to sandbox a site with malware because of the obvious risk to security.
What others have to say:
If you would like to learn more about this nasty virus, please follow the below links:
Here’s what GoDaddy has to say on the subject
Here’s what people are saying on WordPress Forums
Why Are Web Designers Such Flakes? A Reality Check.
Circling the drain of unresponsive or missing in action web designers is a common dilemma. The Question is this: As a self-respecting author with a plan and a purpose, how do you choose a designer you can afford and rely upon?
As a small publisher, or self-published author, you are faced with the high-cost of publishing a book. Your ever-growing budget includes editors, book cover and interior design, maybe a book coach or adviser, printing costs, fulfillment needs, marketing … my goodness, where does it end? When does the author start making money? Well, this is a question for another article all together. The point here is, how much should you allocate to the added expense of (more…)
For many years I have recommended that authors host their blogs on their own servers. I have several reasons for this way of thinking. Firstly, as authors, we are attempting to drive traffic to our websites, to draw in our audience, and to make the sale. Placement within the search engines is an important step in this process. However, the only way to gain placement is to be ranked for keywords that your potential audience is searching for. See, this is how they find you, which is way more effective than standing on a street corner shouting the merits of your wares.
A blog ensures that you have fresh, relevant content posted to your site frequently. This is important because the search engine bots and spiders are out their scanning websites for, you guessed it: fresh, relevant content. If you have a stale website then not only will your audience lose interest, so will the spiders. The blog is the perfect author-marketing tool, and there are so many good platforms to choose from: WordPress, Blogger…rrr, well, until now.
Word to the Wise: Don’t lose your URL. Many people are tempted to purchase a URL (domain name, like www.Jeniffer Thompson.com for example) for five years or more so they don’t have to think about it again. Well guess what—you do want to think about. I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve received from someone whose website went down because they let a URL expire. What’s worse, is that most of those people had no idea where they purchased the URL or how to get it back.
Quick TIP: if you can’t remember where you purchased your URL, you can find out here: http://whois.domaintools.com. This website will tell you who purchased it, when it expires/expired, and most importantly the email associated with that URL.
How does this happen? Well, a Registrar will notify you that a URL is getting ready to expire, but if you no longer use that email address, you’ll never get the notification. Once a URL expires, you have 30 days to get it back, otherwise it becomes available for purchase from anyone. Yikes.
With time, URLs become “seasoned.” This means that they are ranked and indexed by search engines like Google. This takes time and is valuable to your Internet Marketing efforts. If you lose your URL, you’ll have to start all over and that is, well, that’s unnecessarily tragic.
So, don’t think of your URL as something you need to buy and forget, think of it as your anchor, the foundation for all of your work. Without it, things begin to crumble, if not completely crash.
One of the best ways to optimize your website and increase your visibility is to have lots of incoming links—that is, lots of sites that link to your site. The higher the number of incoming links you have, the higher you are ranked in search engines like Google. Of course, it’s best that these sites are already ranked in Google and have a certain amount of popularity. Think of it like you would the schoolyard politics of popularity: Let’s say you have 150 really unpopular friends in junior-highschool (follow me here), this doesn’t make you popular—you are judged in accordance with whom you hang with. This is also true with Google’s ranking system. If 150 unranked sites link to you, you have gained nothing. However, if 10 really popular, highly-ranked sites link to you, Google assumes you have something of value to offer and they increase your ranking, and you gain more visibility.
But this is not why I decided to write on this subject. What I really want to talk about is anchor text and how you can leverage it to promote yourself online.
Whenever you add a link to your site (even within the pages of your own site) the words that people click on (the link) is called anchor text. For example, if you use the word “here” as the clickable word (the link) that people click on to learn more, you are highlighting “here” as the notable subject. I’m sure you have seen this – click HERE to learn more and then you physically click “here.” This used to be common practice, especially for people leading visitors to pages within the same site. The truth is, this is a missed opportunity to promote your subject and optimize your site for a viable term. It is better to use words that describe what you are promoting. What you really want to promote and optimize for is your company name, or maybe your book name, or your product name, or maybe a service you offer.
For example: let’s say I want to promote my speaking service (which I do). I could tell you to click here to learn more about my speaking topics OR I could say something like: Jeniffer Thompson is a professional speaker…. OR Jeniffer Thompson offers seminars on Internet Marketing for authors.
Because I have used a keyword phrase as my link (my anchor text) Google will index my site for that term. And, if someone does a Google search for “seminars on Internet Marketing for authors,” they just might find my site—because Google now ranks my site for that term. The more this term appears on my site—the more Google will view it as relevant content and the higher I will appear in the search engines for that term.
So, next time you are writing a blog post, remember this: A blog post is a link. Strategically choose words that you want indexed in the search engines. Of course, make sure it’s relevant to your topic or people will never take you seriously and ultimately, every time you write content for your site you should be speaking directly to your audience, not to a search engine.
That’s all for now. I look forward to adding more tips weekly, so check back soon.
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