Miss out on these and you will miss out on a lot of traffic and success and income.

Even if you are familiar with some of the tasks in this New WordPress Install Checklist – chances are you will be missing out on some key tasks, that can make the difference between success and failure.

New WordPress Install – Checklist and Guide

Getting the best out of your new WordPress site requires some tweaking and changes to the standard setup, starting with….

1. Create a SEO Friendly Permalink Structure

This is the first and most important task in every new WordPress install for me.

Permalinks are the permanent URLs (address in simple words) to your individual blog posts, pages and categories. The URL to each blog post should be permanent, and never change hence permalink.

To change WordPress permalink structure, go to Settings -> Permalinks and select your desired permalink structure.

Your URL structure should be as simple as possible. It is recommended to use Post name as your permalink. It is more readable and search engine friendly.

Bad permalink Structure: http://www.example.com/?p=123

Good permalink structure: http://www.example.com/image-seo

Google recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs. You should read article about simple URL structure by Google to learn more.

2. Delete Default Post/Page And Rename Category

Don’t forget to delete (or Edit) default sample post and page. Go to Post > Categories and rename default category.

I am always quite amazed at the number of blogs that still have their default “HELLO WORLD” first post!. Please don’t let that happen on you next new WordPress install!

3. Create Welcome Post And About Page

After deleting default post and page create a welcome post and about us page. About us page is very important, Read 9 Simple Tips For Making An About Us Page That Works For Your Brand by Ben Austin at MOZ blog.

4. Complete User Profile

Go to Uses > Your Profile and complete your profile. Add your first name, last name, website URL and Biographical Info. Signup for Gravtar.com account and upload your picture.

‘Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site – gravatar.com’

5. General Settings – Title, Tagline And Time Zone

Go to the Settings > General settings page to add your site title and tagline. (wp-admin/options-general.php)

Also, when there, select time zone, date & time format and site language.

If you want to allow people to register on your site select Anyone can register checkbox and set default user role for new members.

6. Choose A Mobile Friendly Theme

In February 2015, Google announced that the mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages. Read FAQ’s about Google’s Mobile Friendly Update.

Conversely, pages designed for only large screens may see a significant decrease in rankings in mobile search results –  Google Developers Blog

Choose your theme wisely. Make sure it is fully responsive and mobile friendly. There are thousands of free and premium themes available.

Default WordPress themes such as TwentySixteen and TwentyFifteen are very popular themes. You don’t need a theme with hundreds of features you may never use. Choose a theme which suits your needs.

If your theme is not responsive and mobile friendly, install and activate the mobile theme for your site. JetPack has a mobile theme module.

7. Widgets And Navigation Menus

Add necessary widgets to your sidebar area. Recent post, recent comments and categorize widget are common.

Create a navigation menu and add the most important link in the main navigation menu. Make sure your navigation menu has a logical structure and menu is responsive and mobile friendly.

Recommended Read: 17 Major Main Menu Mistakes – an article by Marvin Russell on how to optimize your navigation menus.

8. Install Essential Plugins: Akismet And Jetpack

JetPack is one of the most popular plugin with more than 30 modules for different features. You can activate JetPack stats module to view how many people visit your website daily.

JetPack’s mobile theme can make your website mobile friendly and with sharing module you can add social media sharing buttons. Site Icon, Site Verification Activate and Sitemaps are very useful features.

Spam is a challenge for Bloggers – but fortunately there are Plugins that will help – such as LH Zero Spam

LH Zero Spam blocks registration spam and spam in comments automatically without any config or setup.

And of course there is also the Akismet:  Anti-Spam Plugin for WordPress

9. Install SEO Plugin + Read SEO Basics

Search Engine Optimization is a must for every website and blog.

Install Plugins such as: Project Supremacy (14 Day Free Trial), Yoast SEO, All in one SEO or any other SEO plugin to optimize your content for Search Engines.

Read some articles about SEO to learn how to write SEO Friendly Content. 

Optimize every blog post for Search Engines. Target keywords.

Optimize images for SEO as well – see Optimize images for SEO

Read Google’s image publishing guidelines and follow these guidelines for better search engine ranking.

10. Verify Website And Social Media Account

Make sure Search Engine can crawl your website properly. Go to settings > Reading and make sure * Discourage search engines from indexing this site* option is unchecked.

Use Yoast SEO or Jetpack Site Verification module to verify your website. Add your websites to Google webmaster tools and Set preferred domain (www or non-www).

The preferred domain is the one that you would like to use to index your site’s pages (sometimes this is referred to as the canonical domain). Links may point to your site using both the www and non-www versions of the URL (for instance, http://www.example.com and http://example.com). The preferred domain is the version that you want to use for your site in the search results – for more information see Google Search Console Help

11. Create Contact Page

Make it easy for people to contact you. Create a Contact us page and add a contact form. Contact form 7 is the most popular plugin to create contact forms, if you are using Jetpack, Go to Jetpack Settings page and activate contact form module.

12. Optimize Website For Speed

If your website takes too much time to load, You will lose your visitors. 83% of visitors expect sites to load in less than 3 seconds. So make sure to choose a reliable and fast hosting provider. The excellent infographic below (from KISSmetrics) explains how loading time affects your bottom line! [Click image to view]

According to a report by Kissmetrics, 47% of consumers anticipate a website page to load within two seconds. If it does not, they are unlikely to stay around.

There are many free and premium plugins available to optimize your website for speed. Install caching (W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache) and image optimization WP SmushIt plugins. Choose a lightweight theme from an experienced developer.

You don’t need to install dozens if plugins. Install most important plugins only. If you are not going to publish a lot of images, don’t install an image optimization plugin. Use an online Image Compression Service to optimize images for each blog post.

Read 16 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website Today!

13. Install Security Plugins

As of March 2016, Google reports that over 50 million website users have been greeted with some form of warning that websites visited were either trying to steal information or install malicious software. Securi has published a report How Websites Get Hacked and the Malware Used.

WordPress websites are considered possible targets for many hackers. make sure website is secure and safe because hackers are always out there trying to invade.

Don’t use Admin as your username, choose a complex password. Install and activate two-factor authentication plugin to secure your login page.

There are dozens of free and premium WordPress Security plugins available. Wordfence Security is very popular free security plugin. Read Hardning WordPress guide at WordPress Codex to learn more about WordPress security.

Themes and Plug-ins also need to be updated. You should always update all plugins and themes regularly. If you are not using any plugin or theme delete it. There is no point in keeping it. Try to avoid free and premium themes. Download free themes from trusted developers.

WordPress Theme directory is the best place to find free themes. If you can afford a premium theme buy a premium theme as they tend to be faster, safer and better coded.

14. Regular Back Ups

Backing up your entire WordPress site is simple and easy. Free and premium plugins will do hard work for you. Must install a free or premium backup plugin.

Site backups are essential because problems inevitably occur and you need to be in a position to take action when disaster strikes. Spending a few minutes to make an easy, convenient backup of your database will allow you to spend even more time being creative and productive with your website – WordPress Backups

I personally use VaultPress for daily backups. It makes it easy to keep an up-to-date backup of your site with both daily and realtimereal time syncing of all your WordPress content. Basic plan (daily backups) is starting from $5/month.

BackUpWordPress is a free plugin to backup your entire site including your database and all your files on a schedule that suits you.

15. Start Collecting Emails: Build Your List

Email marketing is the king of the marketing kingdom and I have seen results like 3800% ROI and $38 for every $1 spent. Read 70 email marketing stats to learn more.

email is not dead. write great content and ask your readers to join your email list. Email marketing gives your blog an edge in the tough market. daily, weekly or even monthly email will keep your blog in your subscriber mind.

Add an email sign up form in the header section, below post and sidebar. Offer something exciting. people are more likely to join your email list if you will offer them something interesting (ebook, video course, free templates etc).

The world famous popup software from PopupDomination is the perfect Web App for collecting email subscriptions.

16. Limit the number of posts revisions

WordPress post revisions are on by default, WordPress automatically creates revisions of posts and pages, the old version is retained so user can revert back at any time.

The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons) – WordPress Revisions

Older revisions are never deleted. WordPress stores post revisions in the database. By reducing the database size, we can also speed up your WordPress site.

It is possible to limit the number of posts revisions that WordPress stores in the database. Post revision limit can be set in wp-config.php. (access usually via your CPanel)

Simply add following line of code in your wp-config.php file.

define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 3 );

Above line of code will save only three revisions of every blog post.

For a more detailed explanation of this process (which can come with some risks if done wrongly) check out this Blog Post on WordPress Post Revisions

Fortunately, there is much easier option in the form of a PLUGIN – called WP Revisions Limit – which will be the best option for most of us!

17. Disable WordPress Login Hints

By default, WordPress shows error messages whenever an incorrect username or password is used on the login page. These error messages can be used as a hint to guess a username, email address, or password.

You can disable login hints in WordPress login error messages with a simple function. Just add the following code in your functions.php file. Source GitHub

function no_wordpress_errors(){

return ‘Nothing to see here, move along!’;

}

add_filter( ‘login_errors’, ‘no_wordpress_errors’ );

18. Enable 2-Factor Authentication

Two Factor Authentication is an extra layer of security that requires not only a password and username but also an additional code.

Logging in with a password is single-step authentication. It relies only on something you know. Two-step authentication, by definition, is a system where you use two of the three possible factors to prove your identity, instead of just one. In practice, however, current two-step implementations still rely on a password you know, but use your Phone or another device to authenticate with something you have – WordPress Two Step Authentication

Google Authenticator is a free WordPress plugin to add two-factor authentication to your blog. You will have to install the Google Authenticator app for Android/iPhone/Blackberry.

19. Add Favicon And Mobile Icons

The WordPress site icon is used as a favicon and mobile icon for your site, and will persist between theme switches.

Favicon is a small icon that is displayed next to the URL of your site in a browser’s address bar and It also is used when you bookmark a webpage.

From WordPress 4.3 onwards, You can use the Site Icon feature that is built into WordPress. To add a new site icon go to Appearance -> Customize and click on Site Identity.

20. Remove WP Generator Meta Tag (WordPress Version)

Quite often bloggers do not update to the latest version of WordPress – and this can become a security risk that hackers will exploit. (because outdated versions of WordPress sometimes have known security flaws)

For this reason it is advised that you don’t make your WordPress version visible. (public)

To remove details of the WordPress version you need to place the following code in your theme’s functions.php file.

remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘wp_generator’);

Again there is a Plugin to do the job – try WP Remove Generator Meta Tag

Of course you should also update to the latest version of WordPress on a regular basis.

About Author

Tahir Taous if founder of JustLearnWP.com, where he you can find in-depth article and tutorials about WordPress, Theme Development and Blogging. 

Additional Reading:

10 Things to Do on Day One of Your Blog

The post New WordPress Install – 20 Things You Must Do [Checklist] appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

In spite of the thousands of hacking incidences that take place online each day, few people seem concerned about blog security. Do not think that your blog is immune to such attacks.

Well, hacking is not the only practice you should be worried about while working online. Content theft is possibly a huge problem, particularly in the world of blogging where uniqueness is the hallmark of quality.

While Google and the other search engines create algorithms to identify the origin of certain content, it is still not fun when you discover that people copied your content and pasted it on dozens of other blogs out there.

Since WordPress is a popular tool for setting up blogs, it can easily draw the attention of hackers. You can find the latest threats right here and you will understand what I mean.

Fortunately, you can take a number of measures to nip such security threats in the bud. This post will highlight 10 effective ways you should use now to make your blog more secure.

1. Secure the login

You may have noticed that admin is the default username on your WordPress blog. All hackers know it as well. So, change this one as soon as yesterday. Besides, use Captcha for the user login as a means of protection from the brute fore attack.

To implement Captcha, you can use the BWS Plugins. You will find the Captcha plugin useful in controlling against spam as well.

2. Do not advertise the version of your WordPress blog to the world

Typically, WordPress sites normally publish a version number, which makes it easier for visitors to know whether you are operating on an obsolete, non-patched edition of WordPress.

Exposing the version number of your WordPress site will make it vulnerable to security threats and attacks. While you can take off the WordPress version from your web page, you need to make an additional change: go to your WordPress installation directory and delete that readme.html file from the directory since it also advertises the version of your WordPress site to the world.

A number of WordPress themes contain login links to give you easy access to a login page. You do not need to reveal your login page in a manner that will invite everyone including hackers, to access it.

Therefore, if you have a theme with a login link, you should remove it. If you cannot remove it, consider changing the theme.

3. Automatically back up your blog

With regular backups, you can easily recover from even the deadliest hacks. In fact, at a click, you can restore the entire site.

Besides, before you make any significant changes to your site like upgrading the WordPress version or installing a new plugin, ensure you make a back up. The Better WP Security plugin, you can schedule back functions and enhance security for your blog.

4. Add the password authentication to your WP-admin folder

If you want to keep hackers away from your blog, make it hard for them to break in through your login page. To achieve this, add the password protection to your “WP-admin” folder. This will ensure that anyone accessing this folder will need to type in the correct password and username (aside from the user login).

The simplest way to add the password authentication is through the CPanel. Simply log in to your CPanel and then select this option – ‘Password Protect directories.’

5. Add links to guard against copy/paste

You do not require any complex tools to steal web content. It is as easy as copying the article and pasting it in another place. Besides, you don’t even need to bother about the formatting because that will be copied too!

Way too convenient for the content thieves, right?

Well, recently I started using a great service, known as Tynt. While Tynt won’t disable the copying of your content, it adds an attribution URL to your blog anytime someone copies content from your blog.

The result will look like this – copied content+ read more at www.example.com.

Well, you might say that most content thieves will just delete that link though chances are most of them won’t even realize it! I mean, most of them simply copy, paste and then publish.

After installing Tynt, you’ll receive stats on the number of copy commands that occurred on your site in addition to the most copied posts. Moreover, this tool will help you know how many links you have generated from the read more links.

6. Setup Your Own Google Authorship

Whenever there is duplicate content, search engines may decide which content deserves a lower ranking by finding out the one that was published earlier.

However, that isn’t always sufficient, especially if a person whose blog has a higher ranking steals your content. In such a scenario, the stolen content might continue to receive more link juice.

It is here that Google authorship comes in handy. If your authorship is confirmed, there’s less likelihood for your content to rank lower than similar content stolen and posted on another site.

To setup your Google authorship, you should follow the following steps:

1. Sign up for a Google+ account.
2. In your profile settings, you will find “Contributor to”
3. You should add the link to your own blog there
4. Install the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast
5. Now go to users  then to your profile
6. Move down to the contact info
7. Add the profile link of your Google+ account

For more detailed instructions on setting up Google authorship in WordPress, go here.

7. Disable hotlinking

When someone copies your article, chances are he will also copy images   within the article. After the thief publishes your post on his or her blog, the image URLs will actually point to your server.

Consequently, your hosting will receive additional load thus lowering your blog’s performance. The direct copying of images from someone’s blog is called hotlinking.

The good news is there is a way to help you avoid all these headaches and the solution is CloudFlare.

Well, CloudFlare is simply a great content delivery network. This tool improves the loading times and to achieve this, it caches the content, collects information about the location of the visitors and then sends the cached data right from the local server.

The above functionality and the fact that it’s free (though you may find more premium features), makes CloudFlare a must have for any serious blogger.

However, in our case, we need the “hotlink protection” checkbox, which you can get from your profile at CloudFlare. You simply need to turn it on in order to stop the hotlinking issue.

You simply need to click on the “Security Settings” and then scroll down to the “Hotlink protection” and just click on the “ON” button.

8. Install trusted plugins only

Hackers can easily access your blog through the plugins you install. When you install a plugin, you make it possible for one to access core files found in your WordPress installation. This is why you need to be cautious when installing any plugin to your blog.

Below are four major considerations you should do before you install any plugin

i. Ensure it features in the plugins directory on WordPress.org

If you cannot find the plugin in this directory, chances are it is either not legitimate or it is premium. Do not hesitate once there’s a download option for it in this directory.

ii. Check the rating

Look at the star rating that users have given to the plugin as well as the distribution of votes. If the plugin has more one-star ratings than it has five-star ratings, chances are there could be a security concern.

iii. The number of downloads

Try to look for a popular plugin. You can tell this from the number of downloads under each plugin. Bad plugins hardly generate thousands of downloads because moderators would remove them in no time.

iv. Check out the third-party reviews

As aforementioned, premium plugins do not feature in the directory, making it hard for you to establish their legitimacy. So, when considering such plugins, find out more from the reviews of those who’ve used it.

You can also visit the CodeCanyon directory, which features premium plugins and you can find out whether the plugin is legit and safe to use.

9. Install the two security plugins

You can install two powerful security plugins that will keep hackers running from your blog. These are:

a. Wordfence

This security plugin has awesome features: it limits the login attempts, scans the themes and plugins against your WordPress repository versions for changes; scans the comments for phishing URL’s and malware, and checks out for any outdated plugins. Wordfence is a great plugin that you can get free.

b. Limit Login Attempts

With this plugin, you can keep threats off of your WordPress login page. It enables you to restrict the number of times that users (based on the IP address or cookie) can unsuccessfully try to log in into your own blog.

10. Install a Firewall

Finally, to protect your blog against hacking and other security attempts, you should install OSE Firewall, the creation of Open Source Excellence.

This firewall has a built-in scanner that will scan your blog for any malicious codes. Besides, it has a new anti-spam feature that will keep your blog spam free.

 Conclusion

You can follow the above steps to protect your WordPress-powered blog against unsolicited access and also to keep content thieves at bay (although I am yet to find a sure-fire tool that can stop content theft from my blog).

Now, I’m curious to know the ways you guys use to secure your blogs. Do you use other security plugins or other methods not on this list? Kindly take a minute and share something in the comments!

The post 10 Ways To Improve Blog Security (so that you don’t get hacked) appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Wishlist member is the best and most flexible membership site plugin for WordPress. It’s very powerful, but also easy enough to use that you really don’t need to be a techie to build a great membership site with it. The Wishlist member plugin allows you to build a high quality membership site that also looks sleek and very easy to manage as an admin.

I use this plugin personally, and know a lot of top online marketers who use it. It’s so popular for two primary reasons:

1. It’s really powerful – the features and options kick ass.
2. It’s really easy to use.

If you’re thinking: “But I don’t need a membership site.” Think again. Membership sites help you make money like a pro, big time. The bottom of this post gives some clear reasons.

Here is some of what Wishlist member does, broken down…

Integration:

Wishlist Member seamlessly integrates with…

• Various shopping carts and payment processors, such as SamCart, PayPal, ClickBank, 1Shoppingcart, and more.
• Affiliate systems such as SamCart, 1shoppingcart, clickbank, and iDev Affiliate.
• Most common autoresponders, and has a general option to integrate with other autoresponders.
• OptimizePress (actually, this is by far the easiest way to build a membership site: OptimizePress + Wishlist Member … it’s exactly how I have all of my clients do it)
• More! It has an API for flexibility… if you want to get all techie.

Total Content Control:

Build An Elegant Welcome Area:

You can have an elegant welcome area with some content, even for free members. That way, you can sell them more stuff within the members area. This can be a great way to convert your leads into customers by giving them “access.”

Import/Export:

Easy to use and manage:

What does Wishlist Member cost?

There have been some sweet sites built with Wishlist Member

While you certainly don’t have to be a design pro to build a good membership site, you can definitely see the possibilities by checking out some of the membership sites others built:

How does Wishlist Member stand up against other membership plugins?

Here are two that are often talked about:

S2 Member.

There are others, such as WP eMember and aMember. WP eMember is by the same people as WP eShop, and I know from experience that eShop is a poor option in comparison to its competitors. WP eMember lacks important integration tools, you don’t want to get stuck with it long term.

aMember used to be popular, but now Wishlist wins out in my book, especially in terms of user friendliness.

The Bottom Line

Wishlist is the best membership plugin for WordPress sites. While there are other good options, such as DAP, Wishlist makes it easy. And I’m a huge fan of making WordPress easy so that you can focus your time on content that will provide value for your members and readers and ultimately make you money… rather than playing around with complicated plugins.

If you’re looking to build a membership site, get Wishlist member.

Make More Money with Membership

If you’re not thinking about building a membership site, think again…

A membership site is one of the best ways to distribute your premium information (info products), create a continuity program, and distribute your premium tools and plugins. It makes it easier for you to keep selling to the same customer base over and over, while making it much easier for them to access the stuff they paid for. It also dramatically ups the security of your content, so you don’t have to stress about people sharing your hard work for free.

Because you can use Wishlist to upsell stuff directly through your membership site, you can create more passive income for yourself by just making different membership levels. You can even put all of your recommendations within your site. Since everyone in there is a buyer, they’re now more likely to actually purchase stuff through your affiliate links, without you even having to mail them!

Virtually every online marketer with any products or premium content uses a membership site. Start yours today.

The post Make Money With A Membership Site: A Wishlist Review appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

 1. How To Optimize Your WordPress Website For Mobile

You’re probably missing out on quite a few readers, and you’ll miss out on more if you don’t go mobile with your blog. In January 2012, nearly 9% of all global pageviews were from a mobile device. This number is expected to keep growing, to the point where in 2015 the pageviews from mobile devices will outgrow the pageviews from laptops and personal computers. Upgrade your site to have a mobile version!

The easiest way to do this is through the free plugin WP Touch. Once installed, you edit some settings, create a few icons or use stock icons, reformat some pages if necessary, and you have a beautiful mobile site that looks and functions like an app! Now if someone opens your blog (let’s say from an email, or from a Facebook link) on their phone, they’ll actually be able to consume your content easily, as well as comment on it and share it, rather than zooming in and out in frustration trying to navigate your site.

If you want to take things to the next level, upgrade to the premium version WP Touch Pro, which has some additional options to customize even further.

A lot of newer themes are also mobile friendly (responsive), meaning they already have a mobile version built in, so you don’t have to worry about it. So if you’re thinking about changing themes, keep this in mind while doing your research.

Upgrade your site to mobile and be better prepared for the future.

2. Speed Up Your WordPress Website

Viper Video QuickTags

If you have ever embedded a video, you know that you need to use HTML code to make it happen. Make your life easier and save time by utilizing the Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin.

After installing the plugin and adjusting a few settings, you will have the ability to copy and paste the video link and embed videos with the click of a button. The plugin is super simple to use and gives you the option to embed more than one video at once!

Check out the activation details below:

1. Viper’s Video Quicktags will show up on your Dashboard Menu under “settings”
2. Uncheck everything under “Show Editor Button” except for YouTube
4. This will create a button when you add a page/post
5. Click on the new button above the WYSIWG visual page editor
6. Paste the direct URL to your video and edit the size by opening the accordion below
7. Click okay and this will populate a shortcode into the post box
8. Click on update and check out your super slick videos once you refresh the page!

Mission accomplished in a quarter of the time and you didn’t even have time to think about it before the video was embedded and sized.

Faster Image Insert

Embedding images into a page requires a couple of steps. You need to click on the media button and this opens a light box. Once you upload the image, you can edit the size and insert into the page or post.

The process is slow because a lightbox has to load in between every image that is added. It’s easy to imagine why waiting for a lightbox to open in between inserting each image can get pretty annoying, and not to mention time-consuming. This is where Faster Image Insert comes in.

Faster Image Insert allows you to upload images much faster because it adds a meta box (no more lightbox) right below the WYSIWYG visual editor. You can insert multiple galleries or images at once, including NextGen Galleries, which is pretty awesome. You can also change title/captions on a mass scale with a single click.

It appears right below your post, whether in visual or HTML:

3. WordPress Plugins To Improve Search Engine Rankings

All In One SEO Pack

This plugin is a must have for anyone interested in getting search engine traffic. It is great for both the beginner and the advanced user. The plugin is intuitive and includes features like automatic optimization of your titles for search engines and meta tags. This is a plug and play plugin, which means that it is effective as soon as it is activated.

Advanced users are able to fine tune just about any setting, such as the ability to override any title and set any meta description and meta keywords you want. This is going to increase your SEO presence drastically, which will definitely help you increase your sites traffic.

Google XML Sitemaps

In order for your site’s pages and posts to be found in Google’s search engines, they need to be indexed/stored in Google’s massive database of websites and other web content.

There are many ways to get indexed faster by Google such as Tweeting your new page or post but using this plugin makes the process simpler.

Each time you create a new post or page, the plugin will update your site’s XML sitemap (which the search engines use to index your site) and automatically let the search engines know about the update. The benefit here is obvious. Get the plugin asap and start sending your message to a larger audience.

SEO Pressor

SEO Pressor takes the SEO within your blog posts to a new level. It allows you to write for a specific keyword, and measures your post white you write for how effectively you are writing for that keyword. It even gives you an overall score along the way. Here’s a screenshot of what it does:

4. How To Uncrash Your Site! (for plugin issues)

Steps to Uncrashing Your Site

This is one of the easiest problems to fix, yet I still notice a ton of forums being bombarded with questions like “I Installed a plugin and my site crashed!! I need a developer ASAP!”

Take a deep breath, regain your composure and listen to me. Even though the issue may appear to be fatal, it is actually one of the simplest issues to fix.

Here are the 5 easy steps to uncrash your site:

1. Login to your FTP Client
2. Find the Plugin Folder in your Directory
3. Sort Plugins by “Last Modified”
4. Select the Plugin in Question
5. Delete the Plugin
Once Plugin is deleted, it will no longer show up or crash your site. You can thank me after you calm down!

5. Plugins to Make Affiliate Marketing Easier

Pretty Link

Say you have an affiliate link: www.domain.com/longconfusingmess

Let’s also say you have a domain called: www.incomediary.com

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could customize the link and still get credit for the referral? Wouldn’t it also be valuable if you could track both the total number of clicks as well as the total number of unique clicks to monitor performance – regardless of if the link is in your email, WordPress site, or anywhere else?

Pretty Link allows you to do both. The process is super simple and it creates a ton of value. Here is an example:

Before Pretty Link: www.hostgator.com/longconfusinglink
After Pretty Link: IncomeDiary.com/hostgator

In addition, it tracks both total and unique clicks and displays the respective numbers in the plugins options. Pretty damn awesome.

It also makes it easy for you to remember all your affiliate links in case you ever need them on the fly while chatting with someone. This alone has easily hundreds of extra dollars in my pocket .

Amazon Associate Filter Plugin

Amazon is one of the largest and most well known internet companies in the world. It would only make sense that the Amazon Associate Program is one of the best affiliate programs, aS they offer a massive number of product categories, which is great for Niche sites that are unable to find relatable affiliate programs.

Amazon makes it very simple to integrate the program with your current site. If you don’t have an account, I highly suggest that you head over to the site and sign up.

The Amazon Associate Filter is a great time saving plugin for Amazon affiliates. It automatically will change any links to the amazon website to your affiliate link without revealing it to the reader. Say goodbye to being slowed down by finding and pasting your affiliate link into your page or post. Amazon Associate Filter is a must have plugin for any Amazon Affiliates!

6. WordPress Contact Form Plugins

When you first logged into WordPress you may or may not have notice that there is no page or theme option to add a contact form to your site. Contact forms allow visitors to contact you with questions, complaints, suggestions, etc.

Here’s some good news: You have options! I introduce you to three here, but use Google to find more information. You may even discover a brand new plugin that makes Gravity Forms look like childs play. Don’t spend too much time, but definitely check out a link or two.

Contact Form 7 (Flexible)

If you value simplicity and flexibility, Contact Form 7 is a great option. It allows you to design the form, email, and even lets you manage multiple contact forms. In addition, it supports many features including AJAX submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, file uploading, and more.

Contact Me

In addition to providing you with a neat and flexible contact form, this plugin allows you to have a floating contact me/us floating button on the side of your site on every page, like this:

It’s a nice call to action, especially if you provide any services or are looking for leads to get in touch with you. While the plugin itself is free, to remove the Contact Me branding and get more options, you do have to upgrade to the premium version.

Gravity Forms (Premium)

If you prefer a premium contact form that includes an intuitive user interface and the works in terms of options, then Gravity Forms is the best option for you. While the plugin costs a little bit of money, the time it saves you and the improvement in quality is well worth it, especially if you are building multiple forms.

7. Make Your Site Neater and brand more visible!

Favicon! – plugin and creation tool

A Favicon is the little image that shows up on your browser’s tabs when browsing your site and can really help brand your site. It may be a small image, but has potential to be a significant part of your branding effectiveness.

An awesome site for Favicons is: www.favicon.cc. You can even draw a custom Favicon but I don’t recommend this because it has proven to be less effective – unless you’re great with design. You can also upload an image and turn it into a Favicon, or find tons of free favicons that might match your brand.

Plugin: All in One Favicon

All in One Favicon uses the favicon you created and displays it on the browser tab for the public. You can create both front end (what the viewer see’s) and back end (what you see in your dashboard). If you don’t have a favicon, you are missing out on an opportunity to brand your site.

Logo – cooltext.com

While creating a custom logo in Photoshop or Illustrator is great – a lot of new bloggers don’t have the skills, time, or money to do so. You can actually create a unique text based logo in minute using this cool tool. It’s a lot better than having a plain text header on the top of your site!

Enter: CoolText.com to save the day (or at least a few minutes). They offer a ton of customization options which makes the experience much more personal.

You can choose from a boatload of fonts, effects, colors, sizes and file types. I promise that you can create very professional logos as long as you make sure to explore ALL of the options first. The best part is – it’s all free!

8. WordPress Plugins For Increasing Website Speed

Get A Caching plugin

I’m sure you have been on a blog or even corporate site that feels as if it is taking forever to load. Why would you want someone to have the same, annoying experience? A slow site can have devastating effects on site traffic, but thankfully there is a plugin to make it easy to speed your site up.

There is a solid selection of Caching Plugins on the web. The most popular ones are W3 TOTAL CACHE and WP SUPER CACHE, but don’t let this stop you from researching and trying out other programs.

A caching plugin is valuable because it saves your page the first time that a visitor visits it.It then will used this saved information to automatically load the page based on the information. It will also automatically re-cache your site if any content changes!

One less thing to worry about.

Some tips: One of the simplest ways to speed up a slow site is to be sure to deactivate all of the plugins that you are not currently using on your site. We recommend a lot of plugins here and I know this may appear to contradictory, but it’s important not to go overboard! Deactivate unimportant plugins, especially those that work on the outside of your site vs. the admin panel, and you will see the difference in speed.

Decrease Image Sizes before Uploading – Some people just upload images and then resize them using the WordPress (HTML) image editor. Try to avoid this when you can. Go into Photoshop, Save For Web and Devices, and resize the images to your desired dimensions. That way you get smaller file sizes, which load faster, and speed up your site, sometimes very significantly.

9. Get Social!

You work hard putting great content on your blog. Make sure it’s easy for people to share and discuss so you get more traffic, credibility, and user engagement.

Sharing

I recommend using the Digg Digg plugin. It’s the quickest, simplest, and neatest way to get all your social media sharing buttons on your posts.

If you want to look cool, use the floating option (like you see to your left). There are a ton of sharing options, and which ones you use depends on the nature of your content.

I recommend including at least: Facebook Like, Facebook Share, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. The rest is up to you.

Comments

I STRONGLY recommend Facebook comments. They will get you more comments (people are so familiar with Facebook comments already, it’s more natural for them to Like and

Comment via Facebook than through the WordPress commenting system), they will reduce your spam comments, and they will ultimately get you a lot more social links back to your site, so more traffic! Make sure you make the settings such that it automatically posts the comment on Facebook unless the commenter disables it.

The other social commenting option is Disqus. It’s also a free plugin which allows people to comment through social profiles, but since people are usually logged into Facebook when surfing the web.

Facebook comments will likely get you more traction than Disqus.

10. Improve Branding On Your WordPress Website

Make sure you brand yourself in your posts and your comments on others blogs!

Start by completing the profile in Users > My Profile with your complete bio, and include this bio on the bottom of your posts (this is usually just a theme option). Your bio helps people connect with you and makes them want to learn more about you. They’re not just reading your content – they’re reading you!

Next – and this is very important – head over to Gravatar.com and create your Gravatar. This is like your profile image on the Internet. You should add all the email addresses you use in WordPress sites, whether on your own site or any you might guest blog on. Add a cool image of you that people will remember (for example, see my Parrot picture in Aruba below!).

If you made a WordPress.com account at some point, you might already have a Gravatar and not know it. Try logging into Gravatar.com with your WordPress.com details before making yourself a new account, to make sure you can get the username you want and your primary email address.

Save Your Self Some Time, Energy, and Money

Do you think some of the tools and tricks in this post will save you some time and create more money for you with your blog? When applied, of course they will.

This is just a small list. You can literally become a total WordPress master – and save yourself a LOT of time, energy, and money by taking this course: Make WordPress Easy. It’s not only the best course on WordPress – it’s also extremely entertaining to watch. Enjoy it!

I hope this list helped you out a lot. If you have any questions about any of these, or have any additional tips, please comment below!

The post 10 WordPress Tools Guaranteed To Boost Your Results and Productivity appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Ad Injection

Ad Injection from reviewmylife makes managing your different ads even easier, as you can place them around your site, and within your content. You can use any type of ad that you want, including Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, TradeDoubler, etc. into the existing content of your WordPress posts and pages. You can control the number of adverts based on the post length, and it can restrict who sees adverts by post age, visitor referrer and IP address. Adverts can also be configured in the post (random, top, and bottom positions) or in any widget/sidebar area.

I personally found this this plugin to be incredibly useful as I was able to input ads where I had never had them before, and start to see an increase in my earnings. This plugin works especially well for me as I write very long posts, never under 1000 words, often exceding 2000, so it’s acceptable to include a small break, by using an advert. Ads are commonplace now, and so long as you don’t overdo it, no one is ever too offended by seeing them. You need to be careful that you don’t start to include too many ads because they will decrease the worth of each ad, and will actually result in lower earnings – it’s simply supply and demand. Experiment with your own website and you’ll soon come to a situation that maximises your ad earnings.

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin

This is a premium WordPress shopping cart plugin, built by Tribulant that allows the WP blog admin to sell both digital and physical goods online plus any services the admin decides to offer. This if perfect for anyone who sells online teaching courses, hands on training, premium support, or any other non-product related sales that are service oriented. Using this premium wordPress plugin you can easily find ways to monetize your WP blog whether it’s through selling digital products like ebooks, online services, or any tangible goods.

You can set up your multiple products and categorize/organize them into multiple product categories. Add additional images to showcase your products so that users know what they are buying and add digital downloads to products if needed so that users can securely download paid files from your website.

With suppliers, shipping methods, payment gateways, product variations/custom fields, product inventory, affiliate products, discount coupons and many other amazing features, you can run a full featured online WordPress shop that suits your needs. The cost is just $54.99 for a single website licensee, but once you start to see a return, you’ll forget that you ever even spent that money.

Amazon Associate Filter

I don’t know about you, but I find the whole process of manually going in and creating custom HTML links for Amazon through the Associates Central, really laborious. That’s why I was so happy to find this plugin, which stops you from even having to login to your Amazon. You simply share a normal amazon like like you would any other link, and this plugin will pull your information and add it to the link when someone clicks on it. Now you don’t have to be bothered by spending ages putting together hundreds of links through Amazon, which will encourage you to link more often – I recently made 140 of the them hard way.

Another really good selling point is that people are always asking me follow up questions about products that I’ve written about, and I can’t include HTML code in the comments, so I’m losing commission when I help people out, by providing them with a specific link. Now, I don’t have to worry about this because not only is the plugin is doing all of the hard work for me, but it’s inserting links where I couldn’t have them before. 

WordPress-Amazon-Associate

You might be wondering why I’m suggesting another Amazon Associates plugin, when clearly there’s a plugin already out there that does the job just fine, and that’s true, to a certain extent. You see, this is more than just another Amazon plugin, because it does more than just provide you with links and commissions, it also comes with various advertising widgets, which help to improve sales. This plugin also fully supports amazon product localization to supported markets, such as Canada, Germany, France, Japan, United Kingdom (GB), and the Unites States.

The WordPress Amazon Associate plugin is designed to be your all inclusive source for enriching you website with Amazon Products and Widgets embedded with your unique Amazon Associate Tag. Widgets such as the carousel have been proven to provide better results and more commissions, as they’re more like adverts, than anything else. So long as you’re advertising the right products, to the right crowd, then there’s a good chance that your commissions are going to be much better than the space that would have been taken up by Google ads. It’s certainly worth trailing.

Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer

This plugin not only automatically changes any Amazon link on your site to use your affiliate ID, but it also changes the link to point to the user’s local Amazon store. This means that if your visitor is visiting from the UK they’ll get a link to Amazon.co.uk, and if they’re visiting from the US they’ll get a link to the same product on Amazon.com – All you have to do is provide all your affiliate IDs.

It doesn’t matter if the link is in your post, in your template or anywhere else on your page – it’ll be converted automatically. This can make a noticeable difference to your earnings, from a very small amount of effort. The last time I checked, 66% of my traffic came from America, and 10% came from the UK, so by simply installing this plugin, I can tap into the UK market and increase my earnings by approximately 15%. With the exception of checking that the plugin works after you make the odd update, you very much just install this plugin, and leave it to do its thing.

SEO Smart Links

If you’ve been following this site for a while, then it will be no secret to you that I love this plugin, as it’s easy to set up, and has numerous benefits. The idea is that you input different keywords, and you assign links to them, so that whenever these keywords pop up in your text, they automatically redirect to different content that you’ve preselected. Obviously, there are a great many uses for this when you’re trying to promote your own content, throughout your own website, as you can link to different articles, and keep your readers interested.

The beauty of this plugin is that you don’t have to just link within your website, you can link to anywhere on the internet, which can be used for affiliate marketing purposes, or even just to gain recognition from a source that you’re referring to. In my niche of photography, there’s a program called Animoto, which can be used to create video slideshows, and they have an affiliate program, which provides me with money, every time someone goes to their site, through my special link. This is nothing special or unique, as you’ll find that there are plenty of programs out there that offer a similar service, and I’m sure that you’ll have no problem finding someone in your niche too. All I have to do is to assign certain keywords, such as ‘animoto’ and ‘video slideshow’, and they will automatically send people to the website, using my custom link. Now I can start earning passive income, every time I write a certain keyword.

Cleeng Content Monetization

This is a very cool plugin, which allows you to sell articles, videos, images & downloads, whether it’s a single item, or a long time subscription, and anything in between. Cleeng (pronounced cleng) is designed in a similar way to cable TV, where you have to pay to see good content. You can limit access to certain parts of your website, which holds the information that someone is looking for, until they’ve paid for the access. It’s a really simple system, and the same used by large newspaper organisations, such as The New York Times, who insist on money to see the latest articles, and it seems to work for them. With Cleeng you can sell any individual piece of content directly from your own website.

It’s certainly a bold idea, but it seems to be working so far. This plugin could be considered a bit of a risk, depending on your niche, and how readily available the information is, but it’s been proven to work. The great thing about it is that you keep 80-90% of the money and there are no hidden costs; all payment fees, user support, software maintenance is taken care of. You just need to create the right content that sells.

The post 7 Best Plugins For Monetization appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Whether or not you use security measures now within your website or blog or not, the fact of the matter is that you will soon use online security is a very real issue and many people forget to update or even add it to their online blog or website which can mean disaster if you are not careful. nowadays there are many hackers and spammers out there that are trying to make a few bucks from your misery, some even destroy other peoples websites because they think it’s fun to do. Well let me tell you, it is not fun if you are on the receiving end of it!

Losing your blog or websites content can destroy a business, reputation or just the online presence you have been trying to scale up; imagine having a blog which had hundreds of posts, comments and even affiliate links only to find that it has been destroyed the very next day! Not a nice feeling. However there are ways of making your websites security all that more stronger than beofer. You can add plugins, update your blogs framework, basically there are many ways of going about getting your blog or website secure. So to help you out I have written this short but informative article. I hope it helps some of you out.

This post was put together by of course myself, but also my genius blogging friend, Julius who runs And Break! Check out his blog for my great tips.

Back Up Your Blog

Before making any changes to your blog be sure to backup your blog. The problem with most of the free plugins is that they don’t backup all of your data. For example if your WordPress blog gets deleted and you restore the backup from a free plugin, you will still have lost a lot of your data such as the images, as they are not backed up with these plugins. That why I would recommend to use Backup Buddy which backs up your complete WordPress blog and let’s you easily restore it at a later point in time.

If you have concerns as to whether your blog could get hacked then be sure to take a look at Backup Buddy.

Use Strong Passwords

Strong passwords are essential for high-privileged users such as administrators. Without them your blog will be vulnerable to brute force attacks. Essentially these are attacks in which the attacker tries to guess the password by going through lots of password – user combination’s. If you use secure passwords then the chances of successful brute force attacks become extremely low.

Here are some tips as to what secure passwords should include:

• use at least 1-2 numbers use upper and lower case characters
• use special characters such as !@#…

You should also not use passwords such as your birth date or hobbies of yours. These kind of passwords are very insecure since hackers can find personal information easily.

Another important step you have to take is to have lots of different passwords. It is nice to have just one single password and access everything through it, but imagine what happens if someone knows this password. He can basically access all your accounts.

For that reason use lots of different passwords.

Keep Up with Patches and Updates

This is another vital step in securing your blog. Patches and updates are created in order to fix security holes and to add to the software’s functionality. There is no reason not to install them.

Essentially you should also keep yourself informed about changes in WordPress and vulnerabilities in general. I therefore advise you to follow these two feeds:

• WordPress Development
• BlogSecurity.net

The first one is the WordPress development feed where new releases and latest updates for WordPress are posted. The other is the feed from BlogSecurity.net. These guys often post vulnerabilities existing in plugins or in WordPress.

Use SSH instead of FTP

FTP in general is not as secure as people think it is. Your FTP credentials are usually not encrypted and easy to capture.

A very secure alternative to FTP is SSH. SSH uses a straight forward algorithm to encrypt all the data sent through it, including files. Read this story and you might change your mind about using FTP to upload!

Use Supported WordPress Themes

Most people think that WordPress themes itself don’t pose a security risk but some do. Themes can pose a security risk because not every web developer knows how to write secure code.

For this reason it is good to stick with a theme that is supported and updated from time to time. Supported WordPress themes are generally available for some money, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. These paid themes are called premium themes. Such themes are offered by web sites such as Woo Themes or Thesis.

Another advantage about professional templates is that when you run into trouble, you have a place that you can turn to.

Scan Plugins for Viruses After Download

Today you can so easily download plugins and install them within seconds on your blog. But you have to be careful with what kind of extensions you download. Plugins can contain malicious code. Because of this it makes sense to scan for malware right after downloading them.

You especially need to do that with plugins that you downloaded some places other than the WordPress plugin directory.

For this task it’s best to use anti-virus software. Newer operating systems automatically check for viruses after downloading files. If you use an old operating system I would recommend scanning your download directory maybe once a week or right after downloading new files.

Change the Database Table Prefix

In order to make your database more secure you should change your database table prefix. The default prefix is wp_ and it should be changed to something different, something more complicated and harder to guess like 5rt30k_.

That’s where WP Security Scan is useful since it will do this for you. You should install the WP Security plugin anyway as it will show you potential security risks on your blog.

Limit Access to the Wp-Content Directory

Wp-content is an important WordPress directory. Users should only be able to access certain file types within this directory. These file types include pictures (.jpeg, .gif, .png), Javascript (.js), CSS (.css) and XML (.xml).

It therefore makes sense to prohibit access to all other types of data. The code below will allow access to pictures, Javascript, CSS and XML files but will not allow access to any other data. The code below should be placed in the .htaccess file within the wp-content folder.

Order deny,allow
Deny from all
<Files ~ “.(xml|css|jpe?g|png|gif|js)$”>
Allow from all
</Files>

That’s all you need to do.

Secure wp-config.php

Wp-config.php is a very important file since it contains all the access information and keys that are vital to securing your blog. We can secure the file by adding these lines to the .htaccess file in the WordPress root directory (where the wp-config file is):

# protect wp-config.php
<files wp-config.php>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</files>

This code denies everyone access to the wp-config.php file.

No Directory Browsing

Another vital change concerning WordPress security is to prohibit people from browsing your website’s directory structure. If you want to see what this looks like just enter “index of” into Google and Google will list all the web sites that allow the browsing of directories.

In order to stop this behavior all you have to do is add the line of code from below to your .htaccess file in the root directory of WordPress.

Options All -Indexes

This will stop the behavior once and for all.

Keep Search Engines from Indexing the Admin Section

Search engine crawlers index almost every content as long as they are told not to do so. Your admin section being indexed in search engines can be a major security threat.

Therefore it is good to just keep crawlers away from all WordPress directories. The easiest way to do it, is to create a robots.txt file in your root directory. Then place the following code in the file:

Disallow: /wp-*

Secure Your Plugin Directory

The plugins you use can tell a malicious user a lot about your web site therefore it is wise to hide them.

You can easily hide the plugins. First of all open up a text editor and just create an empty file named index.html . Then upload this file to your wp-content/plugins/ directory.

Delete the Default Admin Account

By deleting the admin account malicious users do not get to know your user name so easily. As every WordPress installation comes with a admin account, hackers will have an easier time breaking into your account since they already know the user-name.

You cannot delete your administrator account right away if you do not have a new admin account, so follow these steps:

1. Create a new administrator account (with a user name that’s harder to guess)
2. Log out
3. Log in using the new administrator account and password
4. Delete the old account

Change Default Access Rights for Users

The default access rights are pretty secure but if you want to be on the safe side and have more control over the rights every user on your blog has, then this is essential.

It is pretty simple to set it up. All you have to do is:

1. Download the Role Manager plug-in
2. Upload it to your WordPress blog
3. Activate it

Then go to the Users section of your blog. There you can set up the Role Manager plugin to suit your needs.

Delete Inactive User Accounts

Inactive user accounts are annoying and also a security risk. Some people choose weak passwords when they sign up for your blog. If the account is inactive but still on your blog, malicious users could use this account to get access to your blog.

Therefore the best thing to do is to just delete inactive user accounts in WordPress (though you need to ensure that it doesn’t break anything). In order to do that go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Users. This takes you to the page where every user will be listed.

Then go ahead and delete the ones you know are inactive.

Add WordPress Authentication Keys to wp-config.php

Adding WordPress keys is another important security measure. These keys should be random and work as salts for WordPress cookies thereby insuring better encryption of user data.

Use the WordPress Key Generator to generate these keys and just replace, in the wp-config.php file, the lines below with the generated ones:

define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);

That’s actually all you have to do.

Install a WordPress Firewall

There is a plugin out there called WordPress Firewall 2 which actually protects your blog from malicious hackers. What it does is to alert you whenever someone is trying to hack your blog. It will also of course block the attempt of the hacker.

The problem with this plugin is that it does its job too well. That means that it usually also blocks you from making any changes to your blog. If you edit your WordPress theme file and then click save the Firewall plugin will block it. This also happened to me when using the Smush.it plugin manually.

This is extremely annoying but at least it shows you that the plugin indeed works. The only thing you can do if you want to edit files like these is to disable to plugin and reenable it later.

Drop the WordPress Version String

<meta content=”Wordpress 2.5″ />

The version string that WordPress automatically adds to your theme is important because it gives a malicious user the information about whether a blog is patched or not. If it is an outdated version the attacker will immediately start to look for security holes that were made public about that specific WordPress version.

WordPress usually automatically adds this version string to your theme. The line of code below will tell WordPress to not to add the version string to your header. All you have to do is add the code to your functions.php file.

<?php remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘wp_generator’); ?>

Now take a look at the source code of your web site. If the generator meta tag is still in there then you should check whether your header.php contains such a line:

<meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress <?php bloginfo(’version’); ?>” />

If that’s the case then go ahead and delete it.

Use HTTPS When Logging in to Your Dashboard

HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. When using HTTPS your data, i.e. passwords and user names, are not send in clear text, instead they are encrypted. This makes it harder for people to intercept and rightly decode your password and user name.

If you want to use HTTPS when logging into your WordPress dashboard, then you can use one of the codes below and add them to wp-config.php.

define(‘FORCE_SSL_LOGIN’, true);

The code above forces WordPress to use SSL when logging into your administration panel but only when logging in. It does not enforce the use of SSL while using your dashboard.

Instead of doing this manually you can also just add a plugin like WordPress HTTPS (SSL)

Block Access Attempts to wp-admin Directory

The wp-admin folder is one of the most important directories on your blog. You can access your dashboard through it. Blocking other people from accessing this directory is an essential step in securing your blog.

You can do this by creating an .htaccess file in the wp-admin directory. Add the code below to it but change the IP-addresses to your own ones. If you don’t know what your IP-address is then just visit WhatIsMyIP.

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Access Control”
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
# whitelist home IP address
allow from 64.233.169.99
# whitelist work IP address
allow from 69.147.114.210
allow from 199.239.136.200

It does not make sense to use this code if you have lots of people writing on your blog, especially if they constantly change. The problem is that you always need to add/delete ip-addresses, based on who needs access to your blog at the moment.

Another drawback is when your Internet provider assigns you a dynamic IP-address, meaning that your IP-address is changing constantly. If that’s the case then don’t add the code to the .htaccess file.

Restrict the Number of Failed WordPress Login Attempts

Restricting the number of failed attempts prevents users from using brute force techniques on your WordPress account. A brute force attack is an attempt to find out the user password through trying out every single possible password.

As a counter measure there are plugins that automatically ban a user for an hour if he got the password wrong three times in a row. Login Lockdown is one of these WordPress plugins.

Hide Dashboard Log-In Errors

Have you ever noticed that when you try to login with an existing username and a wrong password you get a message saying Error: Incorrect Password. If you login with a non-existent username and some password a different message shows up reporting Error: Invalid Username.

This helps malicious users to figure out what kind of usernames exist.

Therefore I advise you to add the following line to your functions.php file:

add_filter(‘login_errors’,create_function(‘$a’, “return null;”));

Every time an error now occurs a blank line will appear. Try it out.

The post 22 Tips To Prevent Your WordPress Blog Being Hacked appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

I hope you enjoy the plugins, let us know which ones you use and why…

WordPress Plugins That Will Make Your Blog Better!

#1 Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer Plugin

Why You Need It:

This is an amazing little plugin to get hold of; if you are an affiliate marketer you will want to read this one for sure. The Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer basically changes any Amazon link within your site to use your affiliate ID. So if you have any Amazon affiliate links on your site, but you aren’t getting as many sales as you had hoped for this may be just the plugin for you. Users are notorious for sticking to their native roots so a UK user may discard a link to a US page; this is for a number of reasons we won’t go into but as a quick example, many discard the links purely because of the postage and packaging costs as well as the delivery time. This plugin will see to it that your users get to the right place.

Click Here To Find Out More…

#2 Contact Form Plugins

Why You Need It:

Gravity Forms have come up with this fantastic little plugin which is great for perfecting your use of forms within your site. Forget all the boring and arduous coding and designing that usually surrounds the topic of form building; let Gravity Forms help you create clean and usable forms in minutes. It really is pretty simple; you decide what you want in the form, you decide what colour and design it should be and you’re good to go. It is a fast and easy way to create professional looking forms.

Click Here To Find a Contact Form Plugin

#3 Google XML Sitemaps Plugin

Why You Need It:

This is just great for those of you that don’t want to get your hands dirty with some additional coding. It basically allows you to create an xml sitemap which you can add to your blog. This is great because it helps with SEO allowing the search engines to index your site a lot easier. It is definitely a big time saver and is a worthy tool to incorporate on your site.

Click Here To Find Out More…

#4 Podcasting Plugin

Why You Need It:

If you enjoy recording audio files for your blog then this may be just plugin you have been searching for. Podcasting Plugin is great for bringing your audio files from the desktop to the website; it also has a fantastic player included so your visitors can hear you right on the page without having to redirect them to itunes or some other program. There’s zero friction as they stay on the website, which means lower bounce rates as well as great content for your site. Get this plugin if you want to make a noise on your site.

Click Here To Find Out More…

#5 W3 Total Cache Plugin

Why You Need It:

This is an essential add-on that you will definitely want to download if you want your site to run smoother and faster. W3 Total Cache greatly improves the performance of your website by caching everything from databases to pages, this makes your server run through your sites content and in turn loads them up to your readers browser faster than ever. This is a very well-known and well respected plugin; used by some of the best sites online.

Click Here To Find Out More…

#6 Studiopress Simple URL Plugin

Why You Need It:

If you use affiliate programs, or even if you just don’t like long and ugly url’s on your website; then this plugin is very much a golden nugget for you. Simple URL’s basically shortens those ghastly, long URL’s to a more manageable bite-size version. It also allows you to track each link individually; so you can see how many times it has been clicked, if you are into your statistics you will love this plugin.

#7 Nelio A/B Testing

Why You Need It:

Strange name, but this is a great plugin. Nelio is basically a plugin that allows you to A/B test your site. It helps you to decide upon such things as; design, layout and even the content within your site by testing alternative variations. This A/B testing plugin was built within WordPress from the ground up, so you know it is reliable and compatible right off the bat.

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#8 SEO Friendly Images Plugin

Why You Need It:

SEO is at the top of all website owners lists and it should be too; this plugin will help you to get the most out of your sites SEO. Instead of going through the usual rigmarole of creating new alt and title tags for each image you insert into your site you can sit back and relax. After uploading your images Friendly Images will automatically give you all the tags you need. A great time saver.

#9 SEO Smart Links Plugin

Why You Need It:

If you struggle with SEO then this is another great plugin from the same company that brought you Friendly Images (above) this plugin can automatically link phrases and keywords from within your blog posts and comments to all corresponding content within your blog or website; including related posts, pages and categories. Another brilliant time saving tool.

#10 All In One SEO Pack Plugin

Why You Need It:

Another great SEO plugin used by many of the top bloggers online. The All in One SEO Pack is a tool which allows you to create effective SEO for your site automatically (you do have to do a little work though). It is a very well built and in depth service which provides you with some great ways to tap into your SEO which may have been hidden to you before. This will save you some time; as well as helping you to perform better user searches. Another great alternative is the WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast; currently in Beta testing mode this is certainly one to watch out for, Yoast is highly regarded in the SEO world so I’m sure this plugin will be great.

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#11 SEO Made Simple Plugin

Why You Need It:

We’ve got a few other SEO specific plugins, but we wanted to add this into the mix because it’s too good to miss out completely. SEO Made Simple from Scribe is a brilliant little plugin which again allows you to create some really effective SEO campaings to your site; in turn making you more visible to the search engines. It works by showing you the type of language users are using in their search to help you add it to your SEO campaign as well as revealing some keywords and phrases within your own content that you may have missed. It also helps you to build up your back links as well as showing you where to find the influencial users on the social media circuit. Brilliant.

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#12 Feedburner Plugin

Why You Need It:

Feeds are important to any blog or website, and sometimes the jargona can get in the way of creating an effective feed stream for your site; your saviour: Feedburner. Feedburner is a web management plugin which provides custom RSS feeds for your blog/website as well as some very handy tools for creating effective feed campaigns. It’s easy to use and a very well recognised plugin.

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#13 WPtouch Plugin

Why You Need It:

You need this plugin if you want the new generation of mobile/cell phone users to gain access to your site via their smart-phone. In layman’s terms this plugin will take all of your sites content and roll it up up into a neat little package ready to throw at the first smart-phone user that stumbles onto your website/blog. Wptouch allows integrated access on all the major platforms; Apple, Android and Blackberry, as well as a few more choice additions. This is a neat plugin and will give you the edge if you are looking to go into the world of mobile marketing.

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#14 Comment Notifier Plugin

Why You Need It:

This little beauty is perfect if you have more than one administrator, moderator or editor; it allows all parties of your workforce to be notified when a new comment has been sent to your blog. This is great if you are away and have another staff member looking after the blog for you as it emails everyone (that you choose) so that they can act accordingly. A very nice addition.

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#15 YARPP Plugin

Why You Need It:

YARPP or Yet Another Related Posts Plugin is just that; another related post plugin, but this one is the choice of a lot of professional bloggers due to the fact it just works; and it works very well at that. Basically it gives you a manageable list of posts and pages that are related to the post which is being viewed at that time. This is great not only for your users to get hold of similar pages but it also allows you to see what else you have done in the past you may have forgotten as well as being SEO friendly; bargain. The plugin also gives you a lot of control so you don’t have to worry about it pulling a list of 1,000 related posts (if you have that many). It’s a really nice feature to have on your blog.

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#16 Backup Buddy Plugin

Why You Need It:

As you can guess from the name of this one; the Backup Buddy basically creates a back up of your complete site but it doesn’t just do this. Backup Buddy is capable of allowing you to back up your site and migrate it over to another server and domain, creating an exact replica of your site elsewhere. Now you may think what’s the point; but if you are testing then this is a great way to start, also if you wanted to create a new site with a new logo, domain etc. but you wanted to keep the layout and the design of everything else, then you could easily do so with the Backup Buddy, just delete the content you don’t want and hey presto, you have a new sister site for your original; this way is great branding too.

#17 GoTryThis Plugin

Why You Need It:

This plugin is a great utility for internet marketers. GoTryThis protects your affiliate and marketing links as well as protecting them by redirecting them across the domains that you own; it mirrors them which in turn keeps them away from others that may want to steal or hack the links. The organization within the plugin is great and you really can keep on top of all your links very easily. If you are struggling with your affiliate and marketing links then this plugin is for you.

#18 Broken Link Checker Plugin

Why You Need It:

This Plugin is a must have for every blogger; it basically checks every single post you create and analyses them for broken links and missing images. It may seem like an obvious addition to the list but a lot of people forget or do not even know there is such a tool available. Add it to your arsenal or regret it!

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#19 Popup Domination

Why You Need It:

This one is essential if you want to build a list; and build it fast. In a nutshell, you create the design, add your content and Popup Domination does the rest: create beautiful and professional lightbox popup’s. The lightboxes are very sleek and are very stealthy which allows users to view them without getting annoyed like most of us do with the traditional popup. So if you want a professional edge to your opt-in’s then this tool is definitely for you!

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#20 OIO Publisher Plugin

Why You Need It:

If you are looking of a way to create professional looking advertisements in order to monetize your site then this tool is for you. OIO Publisher allows you to create an effective advertising campaign without the messy looking blank spaces that all too often fill up website real estate when your down on your luck in the advertising game. There’s also an in-built affiliate program to help get your readers to become customers. On top of all this you can also place the ads anywhere on your site; anywhere at all, don’t like them in the sidebar? No problem. If you are still unsure go to their website and check out their demo.

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