Tag: Blogs

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Hacking Explained – Why You Are Targeted

Hands with red frame reaches out from big heap of crumpled papers
You may need help from professionals to remediate a hack attack.

It’s the worst case scenario, you get a note from Google saying it looks like you’ve been hacked. Your website now has a tag on Google that says “this site has been hacked”, your traffic has plummeted and sales are way off. Why you!

Not all hacking is about stealing credit card information. Sometimes a hack is about stealing your traffic and your SEO juice. Only sites that are well-placed and popular are targeted for this type of hack. The hackers know that you are doing something right and have Google’s attention and they want a piece of that action for their own benefit.

What hackers will typically do in this case is to sneak in via WordPress and then move directly into your website, installing snippets of code that create folders on your server and a brand new XML site map full of spammy links pointing to websites that they are wanting to improve the placement on with Google.

Try to just delete the folder and you’re fine, think again. These scripts are propagating. Delete a folder and it will be back tomorrow in a new location with a new name. Plus the hackers will be logging in to add more junk and update their benefiting site list. It is all done to bleed off your traffic and steal the SEO juice you have.

The only way to solve this type of problem is by brute force. You’ll need to take everything down, wipe it clean and then reload only clean files plus a full new fresh update of all WordPress files. You may even have to clean your WordPress database and manually review each and every website page you put back.

When you do, make sure you are hardening your security, updating passwords and deleting files you don’t need where code may be hiding. These are smart, tricky, and unscrupulous people. They are not targeting you but for any other reason that your website is well-placed and popular.

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Our Increasing Visual World Forces Blogs to Upgrade

The Selfie Generation is Losing the Ability to Concentrate on Content.
The Selfie Generation is Losing the Ability to Concentrate on Content.

It used to be that content was king on the Web; have a great blog or terrific content on your website and that was enough. Search engines loved it and so did customers. Now with devices galore, short reader attention spans, and readers in the Instagram and selfie generation, blogs and website have to cater to a full bodied rich media experience.

Gone are the days of blogs without images.

Gone are the days when only a few businesses did video.

Gone are the days when content all alone was enough.

Now we need…

● Images on every blog post and some have gone crazy by making the image huge it fills the entire computer screen.

● Do a Facebook update, wow, better make sure there’s a good image on the page so Facebook will grab it as a thumbnail as we all know that readers won’t even look at an update that is not visually interesting.

● Doing a Twitter update, yikes, did you add a Twitter pic link?

● Got a new product. Better whip out your smartphone and do a quick YouTube video of you demonstrating it and upload it and then link it to your website.

Although in some cases images really add nicely to content, it almost seems like the pendulum is swinging too far. Pretty soon websites will look like toddler chunky reading books with images and only a few words of content.

Although a picture may be worth 1,000 words, we still really NEED words in our online content to convey a full thoughtful and persuasive message.

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Should You Follow Copyblogger and Elminate Blog Comments?

Let people connect where they want!
Let people connect where they want, on your blog!

Copyblogger, a very high profile and active blogsite, recently decided to stop allowing comments on its blog. Although the owner of Copyblogger tried to turn back the tide of negative pushback citing it was a simple business decision, several online pundits have challenged the purpose of this action.

Here’s what I think about allowing or not allowing blog comments.

1. Yes, it is each business owner’s decision to allow or not allow blog comments on their own blog. But…

2. Some of the best exchanges on high profile blogs are actually found in the comment section as other pros in the industry weigh in. In many cases I have followed links, researched additional products mentioned in a comment, and in some cases even expounded on a post and comments on my own blog.

3. If you only want to have a conversation about the blog on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter, where your real tactic is to drive links to boost up your blog, it seems weird to me to then have valuable content and just point to it, driving traffic away from your blog. Keep the conversation where the content is. Don’t say “read our blog, but if you want to comment on it go to our Facebook or Google+ page.”

4. Blogging is about commenting and soliciting comments. Although I will not chose to not visit a site that does not have blog comments enabled, many times I do read a post and scroll to see what others say to weigh the validity of the information I just read in a blog post.

5. I allow comments on my own blog and recommend that client do so as well, but encourage pre-approval of comments and a periodic review of what to publish. Not all comments on my blog are published as I will net out spam and self-promoting comment posts.

Click our comment link and let me know what you think, do you allow comments on your own blog?

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How Not to Use Blogging

What About Blogging?
Say What About Blogging?

So often a prospective clients approaches us for blog writing services as they have heard blogging is great for their website visitors; to provide value to readers and to build links for search engines. But, sometimes a prospective client may need a quick review on how not to use blogging. Here’s my short list to help demystify what blogging is and is not.

How Not to Use Blogging

1. Do not use blog posts as brochure content. Posts that are repetitive about your services or loaded with keywords about your services as seen by search engines as having no value and defeat the purpose of blogging which is to create slow natural link growth. Who will want to link to posts all about YOU when they may want to be selling their OWN services?

2. Blogging does not typically drive lead traffic. Read number one again. If a post is all about you and simply repeats content from your website, it is doubtful that a prospective client would have landed on your blog first or would find you in the search engine results and then convert from your blog. That client will typically first find your website and convert from there. If you are really looking for leads, blogging is really not the best fit for your investment rather Google AdWords would be a far better investment.

3. I do not recommend using blogging with the focus of picking up content from other sources and pasting that content into your blog post field. You unfortunately are not fooling search engines into thinking that your content is unique, of value, linkable, and for that matter index worthy. If you use Copyscape Premium and find your same content that you selected online for your blog post already at 20 or 30 sites you may actually damage your own organic placement. Blog post should be unique content created to provide value to your readers.

What Blogging Really Is

Blogging is great for building value for your readers, growing your website link numbers slowly and naturally, improving user time on your website, can lower your overall bounce rate, and to create authority as a subject matter expert for search engines. It is not really  a great lead generator and when used inappropriately may even hurt you with search engine placement.