zoopmedia » Tips

How to Protect Your WordPress Blog from Getting Hacked

Justin Wright — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:45:25 +0000

After you have found cheap WordPress hosting and you have launched your WordPress blog, one vital step you must never skip is to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked. If you are new to WordPress security and Web security in general, you might hope that there is a thick book, which lists, in detail, everything you need to do in order to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked and then you have the safest WordPress blog on Earth.

The bad news is that there isn’t such a book and it is not possible to write one. However, there are some steps you should follow in order to at least make your WordPress blog a bit more secure. WordPress is secure but some additional hardening is always necessary.

Minimize the Damage

As with many things in life, prevention is better than treatment but you should always be prepared to react in case the worst happens. One of the best medicines you have at your disposal is a backup. There are some WordPress tools, which allow to backup either the WordPress database only or the whole installation, so get one of them and start using it regularly. Many WordPress hosts, including cheap WordPress hosts, offer various backup tools, so it doesn’t require much effort to find the right backup tools.

Real-time backup is the safest option but in most cases you won’t need it, even if it is available. Weekly or daily scheduled backups are very often exactly what you need. Backups don’t take much time but they are a life-saver if hackers manage to bypass your security.

Peace of Mind with Anti-hack Measures for Your WordPress Blog

Once you get the habit to make regular backups, the next steps in securing your WordPress blog and your peace of mind can be grouped into the following categories:

1. Common sense security.

Security starts with the most basic steps many web masters tend to neglect. Some common sense security steps include the installation of patches and updates as soon as they are released, use of strong passwords (and their frequent change), caution about the places you log from (because if you login from an insecure location and your password can be intercepted, this kills all your efforts to secure your WordPress blog), etc. The careful selection of a reliable wordpress hosting provider also falls into this group of measures – cheap WordPress hosts can be secure but you need to double check.

2. Limit access.

Many hacking exploits happen because the web master was generous in granting access. You should always keep to the least privilege rule and grant permissions restrictively. For instance, if you impose IP restrictions to the wp-admin directory, this could stop many unauthorized access attempts. However, be careful not to cut your own access and lock yourself out! Additionally, you can make many files read-only and give privileges to selected users only.

3. Harden your web server.

Many exploits are possible not because of WordPress weaknesses but because of server vulnerabilities. This is why you need to harden Apache or whatever web server you are using.

4. Secure plugins.

Plugins are what gives power to WordPress but they are also responsible for many vulnerabilities. Sometimes it is the given combination of plugins that makes your WordPress blog an easy target, while in other cases it might be just a separate plugin. Anyway, make sure that you have followed the steps needed to secure your WordPress plugins.

5. When done, check with the WP Security Scanner.

It is naïve to think that it takes only 4 (groups of) steps to secure your WordPress blog – in fact, there is much more you can and should do. If you want to run a security check and see what the report includes, WP Security Scanner will give you an idea of what else you need to fix. The tool in the link is one of the best tools for the purpose, so download it and run it.

These 5 measures are just the beginning in making your WordPress blog secure. Don’t skip them, they are vital.

Laura Hayes is a full time Senior Writer for Web Hosting Search, one of the strongest guides for web hosting. She blogs about WordPress techniques and online marketing.

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC

6 Steps To Build A Succesful Blog

Justin Wright — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:16:17 +0000

(Photo Credit: Jason Gulledge)

It can be very overwhelming when you start looking for information about blogging, especially when you are just getting started. Worse yet, it usually leads to information overload.

In other words, you lay in bed at night and can’t stop thinking about blog post titles, comments to leave, or widgets you should add the second you wake up the following morning.

For this reason, I’m not surprised that the most common question I get is how to (easily) build a successful blog. Unfortunately, there isn’t a blogging easy button that does it automatically.

The good news is that you’re probably already on the right track to building a successful blog. It seems that everyone knows the basics, they just don’t know how to put everything together to create a game plan that can be executed over time. It’s no secret that launching a blog takes a lot of time, sweat, and patience.

So here’s my super simple guide on how to build a successful blog. It started out as a shorter post over at Digital Point but I’ve since added to it:

1. Start A Real Blog

In other words, don’t build a blog that has Google Adsense built in to the navigation bar or tons of crazy looking ad blocks covering up the actual content of your blog. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a great article that I couldn’t finish because of the fact that an ad block was literally over the top of the content (most likely a design issue).

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of room for advertisements. I even recommend adding a few to start, that way your readers won’t freak out later on when you decide to put them everywhere. Just don’t make them the main focus, especially not in the beginning.

As far as platform goes, choose whatever works for you. I’m an avid user of WordPress but there’s plenty of options available.

2. Create Some Amazing Content

If you really want to see some great results, produce some amazing content. This is especially important for your first few posts since these will be the landing page for all of your new readers. If you can suck them in early, you’re already on the right track.

Putting out the content is like wiping the crap out of your eye in the morning. It’s just the beginning.”

- Gary Vaynerchuck

Have something your passionate about? Make it the topic of your blog. Regardless of what it is, make sure you’re actually willing to put in the time to do research and produce great content on a consistent basis. If you can’t think of more than a couple blog posts off the top of your head, you’re probably going to get the dreaded writers block sooner than later.

NOTHING can drive you more crazy than sitting at your computer with a new post started, only to sit there and watch your cursor flash. Trust me, I’ve done it a ton of times.

So my advice is to pick a few topics and then jot down as many post ideas or titles as you possibly can on a real sheet of paper (the tree kind). The more you can come up, the better off you will be.

And that my friends, is just the beginning…

3. Find Your Readers

When you first start your blog, it’s going to be a really quiet place to hang out. It might remind you of those lonely nights you spent in your parents basement back in high school. It’s okay, no one asked me to prom either.

Anyways, It took me months before I was able to get a few comments on my first blog. I couldn’t even convince my friends to leave a few just to keep my motivation up. So the key is to go out and FIND your readers. Don’t hang out on your own blog waiting for someone to come across it by accident.

Find blogs and start leaving comments. And by no means leave short non-relevant spam comments. Instead, go out and find blogs related to yours and leave mind-blowing comments. If you can manage to put together a super thoughtful, engaging, or crazy comment that not only blows the mind of the blogger but also his/her readers, you’ve done it right.

Why? Because they will be VERY curious to see who you are and where the heck you came from. They will click on your name looking for more information and end up on your blog, which is now full of amazing content.

Once you master the process of leaving awesome comments, set a goal on how many comments you want to leave each day and stick to it. If you can stick to your goal and consistently leave great comments, you’re readership will increase like you wouldn’t believe.

4. Write For Other Blogs

Remember when I told you to write some amazing content? I forgot to mention that some of it isn’t even going on your own blog. I know, it’s tough to envision but it needs to be done.

Believe it or not, one of the best ways to build your own blog is by writing for other blogs. Why? Because a lot of bloggers who accept guest posts are more than willing to let you put a short bio (with a link) in the article. That way you’re reaching out to a completely new audience that will more than likely want to read more about you. Plus it’s a great way to start building backlinks to your website.

So spend some time looking over blogs in your niche and see which ones are accepting guest posts. if you don’t see a write for us page, don’t be afraid to fill out contact forms or send direct emails. Most bloggers enjoy getting guest post requests, especially since it means less writing for them.

Just like commenting, you should make a goal to produce X amount of guest posts every week (or month). That way you can start to get your name out there and get yourself known in your niche.

5. Utilize SOCIAL MEDIA

One of the quickest ways to start sharing your content is by utilizing social media. However, the last thing you want to do is start submitting every one of your blog posts to 900 different social networks only to see mediocre results. Just like commenting, it takes some real work to actually get the results you are hoping for.

Instead of spamming your links, become an active member in a few networks and take the time to interact with people. Start building relationships and before you know it you’ll have people sharing your content for you. And don’t forget that it’s a two way game, so don’t be afraid to share other peoples content.

6. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat

Boring isn’t it? There are no secret tactics, methods, or programs that can do this stuff for you. From this point on, you just need to make it habit to repeat steps two through four. Keep producing content on a regular basis, as well as writing for other blogs. Leave tons of great comments on other blogs and stay active in a handful of social networks.

If you stick to these steps, you can build a highly successful blog without spending a dime. Best of all, you’ll be building a legitimate blog that will only grow as time moves on. You won’t have to worry about those black hat methods coming back to haunt you.

It may take some time, but you will look back in a year (or two) and be stoked at the progress you made. It’s important to remember that building the blog is the fun part. It’s no fun if you start out on top.

Have any other tips? Please share them below!

Is Your Blog Cluttered?

Justin Wright — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:41:57 +0000

(Photo Credit: Boltron)

When’s the last time you took a good, hard look at your blog? Was it a month ago? 6 months ago? Either way, it’s important to evaluate your blog on a regular basis.

Why?

If you don’t analyze your blog on a regular basis, it can easily become cluttered. It’s a common occurrence to constantly add new plugins, widgets, and other features as you discover them.

The problem is that you usually don’t remove other features when you add new ones. This leads to things piling up, which can cause blog clutter. This is bad, very bad. You’re readers want to read your content, not sort through your garage looking for things that might sell for 10 bucks on eBay.

The Dreaded Sidebar

A perfect example of this is on blog sidebars. One day you find an awesome new widget that shows your recent posts, the next day you find a cool badge to show off your backlinks.

Here’s just a few of the hundreds of widgets available:

Before you know it, you’re sidebar looks like your attic and it has stuff piled up everywhere. It actually distracts you’re readers more than anything. Do your blog readers really need to know your Alexa rank in the sidebar? If they want to know it, they can check themselves. Same goes for Technorati, PageRank, or how many spam comments you’ve blocked.

Do your readers (and yourself) a favor and take a long look at your sidebar. See what readers might find useful and what does nothing but distract them from your content.

The Plugin Wasteland

Another great example is the manage plugin page. When’s the last time you actually went in there and took a look at which plugins you were using and which ones your not?

I’m not going to lie and admit that I do this as well. I find a great blog post about a new plugin, install it, and play around with it for a bit. A week goes by and I decide I don’t like it anymore, so I remove it from my sidebar or theme.

Then a new plugin comes along and I do the exact same thing. Before I know it, I have a bunch of plugins that need to be deactivated (better yet removed entirely). So go in and take a good look at what you’re using and what you can do without. It actually feels good to delete stuff you don’t want anymore. You feel lighter and faster than ever before (just like when you buy new shoes).

Schedule A Blog Cleaning Time

So make it a goal to schedule a cleaning time for your blog. It could be weekly, monthly, even bi-monthly depending on how often you use your blog.

This will ensure that you keep your blog up to date and that you don’t have any unused cluttering taking up space. Remember, it’s always easier to clean a little every day than it is to clean everything at once.

Don’t Forget To Update Your Plugins

Justin Wright — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:35:29 +0000

From time to time, we’ll log in to someones blog to help them out with various things. One of the things we often notice first is that they are running a lot of plugins that are out of date.

How Do We Know This?

By looking at the little orange notification that shows up next to the plugins section in the navigation menu (see picture).

Whenever you see the orange notification, WordPress is letting you know (in a nice way) that one or more of your plugins needs to be updated. The main reason it does this is because older plugins can cause issues, whether it’s a security issue or an actual problem with the functionality of your blog.

Popular Plugins Update Often

Another thing you’ll find is that a lot of popular plugins will be updated often. This is a sign that the plugin is well maintained and constantly being updated, fixed, and improved. If you happen to find a plugin that hasn’t been touched in a long time, it may be better to look elsewhere.

However, there are a few plugins out there that don’t require much attention in terms of upgrades. These are usually simple plugins that do things such as insert your Google Analytics code into your theme.

Make It A Habit

The best advice we can give is to make it a habit to upgrade your plugins. Make it a point to check every so often to see if anything needs attention. It might be daily or weekely, either works as long as you remember to check.

If you need help, check out our tutorial on how to Update WordPress Plugins.

Do You Have A Useful 404 Page?

Justin Wright — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:46:16 +0000

Lets face it, problems happen. Especially when it comes to running a blog or website. From time to time, people will follow a bad link your website that leads to a page that doesn’t exist. This will result in a 404 error. Which isn’t the best thing in the world.

However, you can add a 404 theme to WordPress that will not only make your website or blog look more professional, but it will also help your readers. Depending on the theme you are using, you might already have a 404 page template that can easily be customized. If you don’t have one, you can easily create one using the instructions below.

Add A 404 Page Template

To add a 404 page template, all you need to do is create a file called 404.php and upload it to your themes directory. Make sure to place it in the folder of your current theme. If you don’t want to start from scratch, we suggest copying either your archive page template or copying the 404 page template from the default WordPress theme.

For some detailed instructions on how to make an advanced 404 template, check out the WordPress codex.

A Few Examples

Here’s a quick glance at a few 404 pages:

Our 404 Page

As you can see, we’ve customized our page to give readers the option to find our latest posts, as well as browse by category or date. That way there not left wondering what happened.

My Personal Blog

This one has a funnier approach to it since I wanted to get a quick laugh out of people. I also focused on giving the readers some important links to choose from, such as my RSS feed and archives page.

Have A Cool 404 Page?

Do you have a cool 404 page on your blog or website? If so, feel free to leave us a comment and let us know. We’d love to check it out.

YouTube HD Videos On Your Blog

Justin Wright — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:36:32 +0000

Awhile back, YouTube started offering HD video quality for some of the videos. It lets you view them in a larger window in much better quality. The only problem, is that the embed code only lets you embed the lower quality video within blog posts. Luckily, there is a fix for embedding the HD videos.

When adding an HD video to your blog or website, you need make a small change to the embed code. Here is a look at the normal code, followed by the modified code.

Original Embed Code

Modified Code For HD

&ap=%2526fmt%3D22“>&ap=%2526fmt%3D22” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”582″ height=”368″>

Notice the bold section of the code? This is what you must add to the code in order to post a video in HD quality. You can also make changes to the window size depending on the video.

Here is what an embedded video will look like in HD quality:

So There You Have It

A quick tip to embed YouTube HD videos in your blog posts. It sure makes the quality look a lot better than the grainy videos we have grown used to.

Set Your Blog Goals For 2009

Justin Wright — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:53:43 +0000

With the new year coming up soon, now is a great time to set some blog goals for yourself. By setting goals, you give yourself something to shoot for. Here are a few tips when setting your goals.

Take Advantage Of Stats

The easiest way to set goals and then monitor them is to use stats. When I started blogging (and still do), I used my Alexa rank, backlinks, and Google Pagerank as a way of setting goals. So I encourage you to incorporate these stats into your new goals so you can see how well you are doing throughout the year.

Set Big Goals

When setting your goals, make them difficult to accomplish. There is no reason to set small goals that you are going to accomplish right away. You have all of 2009 to accomplish them so you have plenty of time. For example, if you are focusing on raising your Alexa rank throughout the year, set it to the point where you think it is out of reach. This will give you something to work hard towards.

Make Them Clear

When writing the goals down, make them as clear and specific as possible. If you want to get more traffic, write down exactly HOW MUCH more traffic you want to get. If you want to right more often, make sure to say exactly how often you want to write. By making the goals clear and specific, you will have no problems accomplishing them.

Write Them All Down

The last step in creating your goals, is writing them down or typing them up. Goals are soon forgotten if they are not placed somewhere. When I was in college, I used to make a wallpaper for my desktop with my goals written write on it. Thay way, each day I saw them and knew what I needed to do to accomplish them.

So start setting some blog goals for yourself. It will help you take your blog to the next level.

Blogging 101

Justin Wright — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:15:38 +0000

So you want to become a blogger? Blogging has taken over the internet in the last 5 years. People visit blogs everyday for useful information rather than magazines, newspapers, and company owned websites. They have provided a means of constantly updated information on more topics than one could have ever imagined.

photo credit: billaday

So What Is A Blog?

The term blog actually deprived from the word weblog. It was later shorted to the term blog and has been known as that ever since. Basically, a blog is a type of website, that is updated on a more frequent basis. It serves more as a journal, and is made up “posts” or entries. Each post is given a date and time that it was published, which makes it easy for readers to know how new the content is. Depending on the topic or genre of the blog, they can be updated anywhere from once a month, to once a day depending on the author.

Blogs are very easy to maintain and require very little web design knowledge to get one started. They were created with usability in mind, making them easy to customize, change, and create. Even someone that has never used a website could follow the step by step directions to get a blog up in a matter of minutes.

What Makes Up A Blog

Like a website, a blog can contain multiple pages, as well as other features. Blogs are usually put together with a template/theme, which are the distinguishing factor in making them look different from one another. Each blog usually contains a header, body, sidebar, and footer.

The header is where the title and main logo are usually found at the top. This is the best part to make a brand of your blog, so people can remember it when they come back.

The body is where the main content is found, just like a report you may write for school. Nothing fancy happens here, although things can be added to spice it up a bit. A lot of bloggers include pictures in their blogs because it looks better on the eyes instead of straight text.

The sidebar is a column found on either side of the blog, which can contain widgets. A widget is basically a small piece of code that can do something specific. For example, a Most Popular Posts widget would display the most popular posts for any given blog in the side bar.

And last but not least, is the footer. The footer is found at the very bottom of the page, and usually contains links within the site as well as copyright information.

So The Question Is? Are You Ready?

Blogging is a fun and creative hobby. However, authors usually spend more time than they expect running their blogs. It can be very time consuming, especially in the beginning stages. It takes a lot of dedication, and more importantly, patience. If you do not have patience to build something, you may not be a good candidate for becoming a blogger.