How important is Responsive Web Design?

How important is Responsive Web Design, you ask. Very important, we say. As smartphone and tablet adoption rapidly increases, so does the importance of mobile-friendly websites. Also, these devices are being used not just for surfing, but for online shopping as well. There is ample data to support this fast growing trend. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and KPMG report the number of mobile internet users in India grew from 173 million in December 2014 to 213 million users by end of June 2015. This number is expected to reach 314 million by 2017. The average mobile app usage in India has grown by at least 131%, far outpacing the global growth rate. The shift from e-commerce to m-commerce and more engagement with mobile shopping, news and personalized apps are factors responsible for the growth.

One cannot ignore these numbers and lose out in an already competitive market. It would be a shame to get visitors to your site, and then lose them to poor website design.

While we are stressing on the importance, some of you may be wondering what it is exactly. Responsive Web Design is a collection of techniques that allow a website to flex and adapt to the size of screen it’s being viewed on. Someone opening your site on a small smartphone will be shown the same site as the person opening it on their laptop but the site will have noticed the constraints and automatically reformatted to give the user an experience better suited to their device.

It simply means a website that has been constructed so that all of the content, images and structure of the site remain the same on any device. No more loading a huge website and having to zoom in and out to find the content you’re looking for. Responsive web design takes into account interaction too and makes your site easier to use by acknowledging and integrating things like touch screens to aid navigation. With a responsive website design, you don’t have to have worry about having different websites for various devices or making sure that your site runs properly on a mobile device.

There are certain misconceptions when it comes to Responsive Web Design, that prevent people from adopting it.

1.There’s no rush to switch now – The world is quickly changing how it accesses the web and as mobile usage rapidly increases, the more important it is to make the switch. You don’t want to be left behind.

2.It’s too expensive – In reality, the cost is no different from other website types, and in the long run you may find that the reduced maintenance costs far outweigh any other site.

3.It won’t look as good on desktops – Actually, responsive web design looks great on mobile devices, but it looks just as good on desktops.

4.I pay for my ads, organic ranking isn’t important – 70-80% of users ignores the paid ads and only click organic. It’s also a waste of money if your paid ad gets a click on a mobile device, but your page is not optimized for it.

If you’re still not convinced, here is a list of major advantages that come with going with Responsive Web Design:

1.Gearing up for the future – Responsive sites work well across the multitude of existing devices on the market. As internet traffic originating from mobile devices is rising exponentially each day, and as people increasingly get used to browsing the web through their smartphones and tablets, the “One Site Fits All Devices” approach will soon be the norm.

2.Enhanced user experience – Designing your site for optimal viewing experience, no matter the device makes the user’s life easier. Thus, responsive web design is about providing the best user experience irrespective of whether they use a desktop computer, a smartphone, a tablet or a smart-TV.

3.Cost Effective – While the cost to make a responsive website is somewhat more than making a conventional website, the expenses to duplicate a website for mobile and other devices gets completely eliminated, as a result total development costs come down, significantly. Also, they survive longer and the unified approach means management, support and upgrades need to be applied to one place only, instead of multiple sites for multiple devices, thus saving time and money in the long run.

4.Optimised for Google – Google states that Responsive Web Design is its recommended mobile configuration, and even refers to Responsive Web Design as the industry best practice. This is because responsive design sites have one URL and the same HTML, regardless of device, which makes it easier and more efficient for Google to crawl, index, and organize content. Additionally, Google is now focussing on the user experience and wants to return search results that will enhance that irrespective of the device used. Websites that do provide a better user experience through well written content and a well-designed user interface across multiple devices including mobile phones and tablets will take priority in searches, thereby improving their Google ranking.

5.Higher conversion rates – An optimised and consistent site, no matter which platform it’s viewed on, provides a better experience for the user which is more likely to lead to them engaging with you than going elsewhere. These direct results can be seen on Google Analytics as well.

6.Flexible – Responsive Web Design sites are fluid, meaning the content moves freely across all screen resolutions and all devices. Both the grids and the images are fluid. This flexibility makes it agnostic to devices and their operating systems. As a result website owners and content publishers don’t have to build versions of their website for every popular device platform that they expect their audience might be using.

7.Easy to manage – Having a separate desktop and mobile site requires having separate SEO campaigns. Managing one site and one SEO campaign is far easier than managing multiple SEO campaigns. This is a key advantage a responsive website has over a separate mobile site. Also, a separate mobile site is not a requirement for a mobile-specific SEO strategy, as mobile-specific keywords can be incorporated into a responsive design site as well.

8.Staying ahead of competition – Outpacing your competition is the key to surviving and thriving in the highly competitive business world. You have to grab every opportunity you get, however small it may seem. Having a Responsive Website that offers a great user experience across multiple devices could be what sets you apart from your competitors.

If you want to be where your customers are, then Responsive Web Design is the way ahead, as it is fast evolving from being a trend to being the norm.

E-mail Marketing Tips`

An often over looked marketing strategy is e-mail marketing. Researchers predict e-mail promotions can boost customer acquisition by 7 percent a year and increase sales. E-mail campaigns are almost as effective as organic searches for driving audiences to brands.

E-mail marketing is a cost-effective and powerful tool for small businesses to win more clients, and keep in touch with existing customers. Anyone who has ever shared an e-mail address with you at some point is much more likely to convert into a customer (if he or she hasn’t already) than someone who has never had an interaction with your business at all. Having an established mailing list and consistent frequency allows businesses to gauge what strategy and messaging works best.

Before creating an e-mail marketing campaign, here are some valuable tips that will help you make optimum use of this strategy:

1.Creating and managing the list – The first step in this process is to create a list of existing or potential clients to mail. The easiest way is to have a form on your website/at your physical establishment where people can enter their e-mail addresses and some additional basic information. Use every opportunity possible to build your list: events, web pages, blogs, conferences, point of sale—whatever is most relevant and available. To get people to provide you with their e-mail addresses, you have to offer something that they find beneficial – tips, sales discounts etc.

It may seem that having a large number of subscribers and e-mailing all of them is a good strategy, but not necessarily. It’s far more effective to contact the right people, i.e. those would be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Segment your list to be relevant and effective. Different people may have signed up to receive your newsletters for different reasons. For instance, existing customers and potential clients, the communication to both groups will differ. Edit your content accordingly to ensure that it is customised to meet the requirements of the various segments.

2.Quality and effective content – Your e-mail campaign is only as good as the content. Publish content that is of value to the recipient or else your e-mails are bound to get ignored. If people have signed up for your newsletters, they are looking for information that is of use to them, and not to be spammed. You don’t want your frequent e-mails with irrelevant content to be ignored and finally unsubscribed to. Also, make sure your e-mails are well written and have a personal touch. E-mails that sound automated are bound to be considered as spam.

What are the best possible elements of an effective e-mail promotion?
According to research, there are optimal numbers of images and lines of text small businesses should include in e-mail marketing campaigns to optimize their click-through rates. The numbers vary by industry, but on an average 20 lines and three images per e-mail are recommended as a good standard for optimal click-through rates in an e-mail promotion.

3.Timing and Consistency – Research reveals that not all times are good to send an e-mail blast. Get an idea of the appropriate time to send out e-mails, depending on whether it is work related or personal. This small step could make all the difference and lead to higher conversion rates. Usually, people check their work e-mails first thing in the morning and/or around lunch time on weekdays. For business to consumer e-mails, post 5 pm on weekdays and over the weekends are the best times.

Once you have a schedule in place, stick to it and be consistent. You don’t want to come across as irregular and unreliable.

4.Mobile responsive e-mails – As mentioned in our previous blog post, being mobile friendly in your online communication is extremely important. You should be able to reach people when they are on the go, so you can stay top of mind. Mobile responsive e-mails ensure that despite the device, your e-mails are being viewed properly. Test your e-mail in different e-mail clients and devices because you want to make sure it looks good in a variety of clients, browsers, and mobile devices, and the message is not distorted or lost.
Email marketing is extremely powerful, when done right. It is a great way to increase your productivity and efficiency when communicating with your leads and clients. Follow the simple rules mentioned above and you are bound to see success.

How to effectively manage change in a Small Business

To survive in the fast-changing business environment, and keep ahead of competition, every company – big or small needs be constantly evolving. It has to adapt to the changing market, customer tastes, technologies and a host of other things. Bigger organisations tend to have specific teams or departments dedicated to handling change and enforcing it, or hire external consultants. In the case of small businesses there in so scope for a dedicated team, or the resources to hire consultants from outside. It all comes down to the owner or at best a few senior level managers to strategise and implement change.

If you have to implement changes in your small business—be it big or small changes—it can be quite stressful for you and your team. By understanding the process of managing change you can be prepared and even avoid the typical issues from cropping up. This will greatly help in making the transition a lot smoother. According to the Change Management Learning Centre, the process for managing change is a three-stage process: preparation, managing and reinforcing.
The following should serve as a guide in managing change:
1. Purpose – What is the purpose of implementing change? What are you trying to accomplish and what are the benefits for your business? These questions need to be answered and understood thoroughly. This first step is fundamental as it provides a foundation for further action.

2.Time Frame – Managing change is an ongoing process. It is not as simple as planning the change, implementing it and then enforcing the change with yourself and your employees. It is human nature to be slightly afraid of change, so you need to prepare yourself and your employees as far in advance as possible. Once you start to implement the change, you need to continue to monitor that the employees are abiding by the new company policies and the effectiveness of the change. As you assess the change, you also need to be flexible in knowing that you may have to refine the changes to make it better continually.

3.Buy-in From All Levels – Once you are convinced of the need for change, you then have to get buy-in from all levels of your business. Typically, buy-in starts at the top and trickles down to the bottom of the organization, or across the organization, depending on the hierarchy of your business. This is why understanding the reason for the change and how it benefits the business is imperative. Convincing other people in your business to accept the change is so much easier when you believe in it and can persuade other people to see the benefits.

4.Expert Insight – Peter Drucker is a change management expert and the author of “The New Society of Organizations.” Drucker states that knowledge is the key to running a competitive business. Acquiring knowledge requires the employees in the business to constantly upgrade their skills. He also says managing the change process requires all workers to be on board to make the changes that can bring the business to a more productive level and ultimately give the company a competitive edge.

5.Training and Inclusion – It’s important that appropriate training be given to employees to ensure the implementation of change is effective. If necessary professionals from outside should be hired to impart the requisite skills. Your employees can evolve and be an effective part of the change only if they have the required knowledge, tools and skills.
The whole process of change – planning, implementing, enforcing and monitoring; can be managed efficiently when done right.

 

E-Commerce Marketing Ideas to increase Online Sales (Part 1)

It’s never an easy job to start an e-commerce website. It’s even more difficult to run a profitable one. Though, you’ll find lots of tips and tricks on strengthening e-commerce sales, but it will out to be completely pointless if you’re not following the right strategies.

For any kind of business, increasing online sales is the key goal for most of the businesses. Whether you run a small business or are employed by a big e-commerce giant like Google, boosting sales is important which looks easy, but in reality, it isn’t.

In this competitive online world, every store struggles to get the smallest opportunity. But in the business of online shopping, most of the retailers follow the similar pattern, “Add these two items and take 10% off” and “Customers who purchased this item also bought…”.

Here are 10 actionable techniques you can use to increase online sales performance.

1. Highlight Reviews

When we make a purchase, we all know how important word of mouth is, whether at a local store or online. In fact, most of the purchase decision is triggered after a positive word of mouth recommendation either from family members, friends or past purchasers.

E-commerce gives you the advantage of highlighting customer reviews right at the point of purchase, just when the customer is deciding whether to buy from you or not. This definitely is a great advantage to have by your side.

2. Target your existing Customers

It’s great for your business if you can keep getting new customers. But, it’s much more cost efficient to go after your existing customer base because these people are already familiar with your brand. They know how to use your products, and there’s no learning curve. So, it’s better to focus on ways to improve their experience.

3. Offer more Discounts

Most of the companies or online shopping websites don’t offer discounts to their customers. So, to increase your profit margin, just jack up the base price of each product and then put it on sale. Everyone loves getting a good deal, so this is a great way to drive sales.

4. Selling Through Social Media

Today, many of the social media platforms available give you the ability to link your online store and sell to consumers in a social setting without pushing forceful advertisements. With a perfect social media marketing strategy you can boost up your sales. One element of it is that make sure that the likes and comments you are receiving aren’t just vanity metrics. Convert those engagements into ROI through product sales.

5. Customize your Content

Businesses must adopt content marketing strategy to communicate with their customers in a way they understand best. Customizing your content will give you a chance of being relevant to your audience, which will further increase your website traffic. A perfect example here would be the development of a blog on your website.

In the next part we discuss about some more E-commerce marketing ideas which can help to market you online and increase e-commerce sales.

E-Commerce Marketing ideas to increase online sales  (Part 2)

In previous post about E-Commerce Marketing Ideas to increase online sales we discussed about

1) Highlight Reviews

2) Target your existing customers

3) Offer more Discounts

4) Selling through Social Media

5) Customize your Content

Today, we take the same forward with some more profitable techniques to increase your online sale

6. Multiple Email Campaigning

Email marketing for your ecommerce store remains one of the most effective marketings channels that is widely used by marketers today. Some marketing include sending out email newsletter containing new arrivals and popular products. You can generate leads using lead magnets on your site like newsletter sign-ups, blog sign-ups, and collect customer information during checkout.

7. Video Marketing

Video marketing is a great way to convey a message and is certainly much more shareable on social media. For any ecommerce store, producing videos should be one of your first ecommerce marketing ideas. The videos could be a product description video or how to use your product video. They are a great way to personalize communication and improve the customer experience.

8. Blog Marketing

To learn more about your business and products you can publish blog articles with informative content on your website for customers. Blog marketing is the best way to create buzz about your brand, grow your SEO strength on search engines, and share more information about your products or your industry. Publish blogs regarding the latest trends, frequently asked questions and product experiences.

9. Optimize for the Mobile World

In the era of digitalization, customers crave mobile responsiveness. Implement a responsive interface so that your ecommerce website transforms for devices like tablets and smartphones. They don’t want to open a completely different mobile site to see a mobile-friendly interface.

10. Provide as many as Payment Options

Provide more payment options, including newer services that are becoming increasingly popular on mobile, you’re making easier for prospects to give you their money. It can be a hassle to optimize your site, but by including all these options is a great way to increase online sales, particularly if your site has strong mobile traffic.

Conclusion :

Successfully running an e-commerce business is never a sure bet, but using the above-mentioned strategies will ensure that you haven’t left things merely to chance. Moreover, all of these strategies will work if implemented correctly!

How to write a successful blog article in 2018

Blog writing offers you the independence to create account, according to your own choice. In 2018, it’s important to know how to write a successful blog article. If your blog posts are written properly, they can help drive valuable traffic to one’s website.This is because knowing how to write a successful blog article can help build trust with customers, improve keyword rankings, generate leads, educate consumers, and even build better brand awareness.

What makes a blog content perfect?

A perfect blog content is all about the quality. While writing a blog post you need to achieve both technical and creative qualities. So, if you desire to write a successful blog article in 2018, choose valuable and relevant concepts and present them in the best possible format. This will impress your readers as well as the search engines.

Tips for writing a successful blog article in 2018

Provide useful and Informative Content

The main purpose of a blog article should be to inform the reader about your business, product, services or industry. Providing useful and informative content will readers to find value in what you have to say, while also helping build a high level of trust with your target audience. While writing a blog, make sure that the content is unique to your website, as copying and pasting from other websites can result in Google interpreting as duplicate content.

Add Internal Links

To enhance and deepen the overall value of the website, add internal links from your blog article to other pages or post on the company website. While linking to other pages or posts, it is important to link to other information that is relevant to the article topic in order to bolster the authority to both pages.  While linking make sure that the anchor text is keyword optimized and appropriate for the landing page.

Create a logical structure

While writing a blog create a logical structure which will help you to communicate a concept or idea in a clear and concise way, making it easy for readers to follow along. Use headings, subheadings, paragraph breaks, images and videos when applicable. Adding items like a bulleted list or two can help provide a flow for the reader that is easy to read and digest.

Use a Strong Call-to-Call action

Make sure that your blog article has a strong call-to-call action at the end that invites readers to engage further with the website or company. It is extremely important to ensure that you are telling the reader exactly what you want them to do next.

Optimize Content for Search Engines

To make your blog article rank higher on search engines is by following basic SEO rules. Including the following items will help to maximize your articles performance potential on search engines:

  • Keyword optimized title
  • Keyword-relevant URL
  • High-quality images with ALT tags
  • Embedded video if applicable
  • LSI keywords (latent semantic indexing)
  • Keyword optimized meta title tag
  • Engaging meta description tag with a call-to-action

How to start writing a blog in 5 steps:

  • Choose a great blog platform
  • Choose a web host for your blog
  • How to set up a blog on your own domain
  • Design your new blog
  • Useful resources for blogging

Is your content doing good ? 5 ways to correct content writing

Is your content doing good ? 5 ways to correct content writing

Content is everywhere – from advertisements and social media to blogs and press releases – and is bound to evolve with time. Content writing plays a vital role in boosting businesses as quality content has the power to entice visitors and keep them coming back for more.

In the era of digitalization, it becomes imperative to write compelling content that breaks through the clutter and captures the reader’s attention. Anything short of that is just not good enough.

Here are 5 simple ways to boost your content writing skills:

1. Know your readers

Write in such an effective way that it will resonate with your readers. So, while writing ensures you have a thorough idea of who your readers are, what are the topics relevant to them and what kind of writing style best speaks to them. After defining your target audience you can go ahead and create relevant and effective content.

2. Understand SEO

In the world of digitalization, if you are a content writer you ought to know everything about SEO. It is important to create SEO-friendly content because it has become a norm. SEO tactics are any content you produce for the web.

In your writing it is essential to incorporate SEO factors such as using the right keywords, using backlinks, creating compelling headlines to get Google to recognize your page and improve your SEO rankings, thereby increasing page visibility.

3. Show your Versatility

Content writing comprises of various kinds of writing styles such as – journalistic style to SEO and social media writing. With so many content writing styles, it is important to understand and adopt the different writing styles to ace versatility in writing.

By keeping these things in mind, you can deliver quality and relevant content that specifically speaks to your target audience.

4. Create your own Original Content

Don’t make the mistake of ‘copy paste’ because of it very boring, outdated and unoriginal content. You need to completely own the content you write. In the web, you’ll find multiple contents on the same topic and might wonder if there is any room for originality. Well, there always is. While writing the content you need to give your content an unique tone and adopt an angle that specifically caters to your readers.

Unoriginal content not only put readers off but it also impacts your SEO rankings because Google is strictly against duplicate content.

5. Read Regularly

Read regularly as it will help you to get exposure to different writing styles, forms and genres. It will help widening your thinking horizons and let you tackle different subjects with ease. A good reader naturally develops a better vocabulary and gets inspiration for their own writing.

So, everyday read things that interest you – it can be a work of fiction, a website column or even your favorite magazine. It is also a good idea to read topics and give attention to writing styles that you would like to produce yourself.

Conclusion

Content writing is not only about phrasing sentences, it is about writing great stuff. There is no straight forward formula to become a successful content writer, you have to put in a lot of effort to create something unique and original to allure the readers. So, follow these simple tips and level up your content writing skills with ease.

Managing domain reputation

Managing domain reputation

This article describes best practices for managing your domain reputation to ensure that your email is considered to be trustworthy.

Prerequisites

  • Applies to: Administrator
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Tools required: DNS host admin access

Manage domain reputation

Domain reputation, in terms of email, is a measure of how trustworthy others believe your domain’s email to be. Every email recipient maintains their own specific measure of reputation, but there are many industry-accepted recommendations that domain owners can follow to build a solid reputation. As more and more email providers are strengthening their rules for what is considered untrustworthy, failure to follow these recommendations might lead to your mail being considered spam, rate limited, or rejected.

The three pillars of any domain reputation strategy are Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC). These features are designed to provide two basic things:

A method of verifying that the email comes from a legitimate source specified by the domain owner.

A way for you, as the domain owner, to tell email providers what to do with messages that do not meet those legitimacy requirements.

Individually, these three pillars are limited in how much they can do, but together they form a fairly clear process for identifying legitimate email from your domain. Providing these clear indicators is fundamental to establishing a good domain reputation. Rackspace recommends the following 1, 2, 3 approach to establish domain reputation:

Create an SPF record. SPF is a DNS record that tells the world where your email is authorized to come from. This record typically contains entries for your email hosting provider and any email services you use, such as ticketing systems, Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs), and bulk sending services.

Enable DKIM. DKIM applies an encrypted signature that is specific to your domain on every message sent from your domain. Most email service providers offer DKIM as a feature of their service. Typically, each sending service listed in your SPF record has its own DKIM signature that it adds to your email.

Create a DMARC policy. DMARC is built on SPF and DKIM. It combines the validation results from both SPF and DKIM, and adds a “sender alignment check” to protect against many forms of spoofing. The policy part of DMARC is what allows you, as the domain owner, to specify what to do with email that fails these checks. It also includes a reporting aspect that is critical to long-term management of your domain’s reputation. This reporting gives you visibility into the email being sent as your domain: where it’s coming from (SPF), whether or not it’s properly signed (DKIM), and whether or not it is passing your DMARC policy.\

Because many companies have multiple domains and use many services that require email, managing reputation across several domains can become complicated. Here are some general recommendations for managing your business email needs across many domains. The following sections offer some general recommendations for managing your business email needs accross many domains.

Separate your email needs

You should always separate mail by purpose and class (marketing, sales, transactional, person-to-person, and so on) by using specific subdomains wherever possible. The following table shows different email purposes and their suggested domain naming conventions:

 

Ticket system emailsMarketing emailsNewsletter emails
support.mydomain.commarketing.mydomain.comnews.mydomain.com

In addition to separating email by purpose, the following recommendations help to properly manage your domain’s reputation:

  • Never share DKIM keys between services. Each source should have its own DKIM key. Most services offer this as a feature. If a subdomain has multiple sending sources, then it has multiple SPF includes and DKIM keys. This is perfectly normal.
  • Segregating emails enables you to lock down each mail stream, as well as isolate each mail stream from any issues the others might have. This is important when it comes to managing the sending reputation of your different email sources. When it comes to managing your domain’s (and subdomain’s) reputation, different classes of email have different considerations.
  • Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for each subdomain.
  • Keep your sending sources segregated and manageable for both SPF and DKIM records.

Person-to-person corporate mail is special

For person-to-person corporate mail, consider the following best practices:

  • Reserve your primary domain for only person-to-person email (your employees).
  • Don’t use vanity addresses on your primary domain for automated systems, such as support@mydomain.com for your ticketing system.
  • Configure an umbrella DMARC policy on the root domain, and create subdomain-specific DMARC policies based on the specific requirements and class of mail it represents.

    For example, you might use p=quarantine on your primary domain (person-to-person email), but p=reject on your outbound-only transactional email (support tickets).

    Taking this step also ensures that the root domain catches all DMARC reporting that might be missed or misconfigured at the subdomain level, as well as catching any unauthorized subdomains attempting to spoof your brand.

 

Solve 500 Internal Server Error in WordPress

The 500 Internal Server Error is the most unhelpful and nondescript bane of web developers everywhere. It’s a catch-all error message that can literally mean anything. Sometimes, your WordPress site gives no error at all and just shows a blank page. How on earth are you supposed to figure out what’s wrong?

It happens to the best of us, but no need to panic. Here’s my own debug process, in order of likelihood and with solutions.

Plugins

If you’ve just installed a new plugin or if your site is showing 500 errors after a core WordPress upgrade, the most likely cause is an incompatible plugin. There are many reasons for a plugin being “broken”:

WordPress may have removed some core functions the plugin uses.
The plugin may have been coded for an old version of PHP, and not been updated.It could just be coded incorrectly, by referring to default database names rather than using prefixes, for example.

Identifying the plugin is easy if you’ve just installed one and the error has emerged, but how can you disable the plugin if it’s taken down the wp-admin area of your site too? You’ll need FTP access, is the short answer, though the web-based file manager from CPanel or Plesk will work fine too.

Solution:

All you need to do is rename the wp-content/plugins/ folder. Place a _ in front of the plugins folder, so it’s named _plugins, and you should now be able to login again to your WordPress admin area. By renaming the folder, you effectively de-activated every plugin – you should get a bunch of error messages from WordPress saying “X plugin was deactivated because the file Y.php can’t be found”. Don’t worry, you won’t have lost any settings – those are stored in the database, and any decent plugin should find them again upon re-activation.

Rename the folder back again, removing the _. Refresh the WordPress plugins and they’ll all be listed again, but in a deactivated state. You can now re-activate them one by one until you find the culprit; then do it all again, obviously leaving out the bad plugin this time.

It’s unfortunate when this happens, but chances are there’s a better plugin out there that is compatible. Find it.

Incompatible Theme

Disabling plugins didn’t help? It’s probably something in your theme, then. Just like plugins, you can force the active theme to break by simply renaming it. Go back to the WordPress admin area (if you can, of course – if you can’t, it’s probably nothing to do with your theme) and WordPress will alert you that it’s fallen back to the default theme. Check the site again. Of course, this doesn’t really help if you’re committed to a particular theme, so may want to re-enable it and head down to the section on Enabling PHP Debug; or just go and find a newer, compatible theme.

Bad .htaccess

If de-activating your plugins achieved nothing and it’s also not your theme, it’s possible that your .htaccess file became corrupted in some way. Usually when this happens you can still access the admin area of the site. The .htaccess file handles rewrite rules and cache settings, but sometimes you’ll edit this file directly to manually code in things like 301 redirects.

 

Solution:

Rename the .htaccess file in the root of your WordPress install folder to something like .htaccess_old. If you can’t actually see the file there, you need to enable viewing of hidden files – the exact method of doing that will vary according to your FTP client. The “.” at the start of the filename is a way of saying “hide this” in Linux and other UNIX-like systems.

Once you’ve renamed the current .htaccess, go back to WordPress admin area, then head over to Settings -> Permalinks and, without making any changes, hit save. This will automatically generate a new working version of the file, though any changes you made manually will be lost.

Enable PHP Debugging

We can enable a debug log from within WordPress config, which might give a clue as to the exact problem – but at this point you’re on your own. You’ll need to figure out how to fix it, which will require coding skills.

To enable the debug log, open up wp-config.php in the root of your WordPress install. Find the line that says:

define(‘WP_DEBUG’, false);

Comment it out using // at the start, then paste in the following:

define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);
define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true);
define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false);
@ini_set(‘display_errors’,0);

This will start outputting errors to a file in wp-content folder called error.log. If you refresh your FTP and see nothing after a minute or so, it’s possible it doesn’t have permission to create the file. Manually create a new error.log file and give it permission 666.

Be warned: this file will continue to grow larger until you remove those lines from your config. Don’t forget to uncomment the original line as well. Read the file in any text editor, and check for any critical PHP errors. In this example, I see a lot of PHP Notices about deprecated code, but these won’t actually break a site.

Server config

I recently had a case where roughly half of all page loads were coming up as 500, but with no set pattern and absolutely nothing helpful in the error logs. Activiting WordPress debug logs showed nothing obvious – lots of PHP notices and deprecations but nothing critical. Finally, I realised I had installed APC caching onto the server the weekend before, to use with W3 Total Cache. Uninstalling that completely eradicated the 500 errors.

My point: the 500 error could simply be a combination of server configs that present an incompatibility. This is unlikely if you’re using managed services, but with your own Virtual Private Server (why should you use a VPS instead of shared hosting?) you’re responsible for making sure everything works together, and this is harder than it sounds.

How to fix the reported Attack Page by Google

Google is policing the content presented in its search engine results. The “Reported Attack Site!” warning page you see on your site is because Google has detected malicious content on your site. In short, your site has been hacked.

To find out the details of what Google found, click on the button titled “Why was this site blocked?“. A new page will display a breakdown of questionable content, including a list of affected web pages and the infections on those pages.

To learn more, please visit:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/3258249

Fixing the Problem

Change your Password

The first thing you need to do is change your cPanel/FTP password. Since the Google warning might also block access to your cPanel, you should try accessing the site via the server’s hostname.

To open a support ticket, please log in to your Trafficpullz Please login to your Galaxy Dashboard:: https://galaxy.trafficpullz.com

Send the ticket to the Support department, and include the primary domain name on your account as well as the request to reset your cPanel password. Please indicate you are doing this because your site was hacked and you need a *new* password, not the original cPanel password reinstated.

Remove Affected Files

You will need to remove the affected web pages (and other files) by:

  1. Deleting or cleaning the pages/files
  2. Uploading uninfected copies of the pages/files to your site via FTP.  Despite the Google block, you should still have FTP access to your site.
  3. If you need assistance with the cleanup we would recommend you look at our SiteLock Service:

https://www.trafficpullz.com/site-lock-security/

NOTE: If you are using Soholaunch, WordPress, Joomla or a Content Management System that requires you to log into an Admin section of your website, you may not be able to restore your site until after Google removes the warning (you will not otherwise be able to use the proper tools).

If you want to be absolutely sure all the malicious content is gone, you can request an “account reset”. This will erase *everything* on your account: web pages, emails, databases, settings, etc. You may then upload a new copy of your site and recreate your email addresses.  Please make sure that you have a backup for your site before requesting this.

To request an account reset, please submit a ticket.

To open a support ticket, please log in to your Trafficpullz Galaxy Dashboard: https://galaxy.trafficpullz.com

The ticket should go to the Support department, and should specifically state that you want an account reset. Following that, you will receive an email asking you to confirm that you want your account reset and you will need to reply to this email to confirm some information. Once confirmed, our Tech Support department can proceed with your request.

Request a Review

From Google:

You can request that Google take another look at your site. You will need to do this from a Google Webmaster Tools account. If you do not have one, you can create a new one for free here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

You will need to upload a web page with a special code that will allow Google to verify that you are the legitimate owner of the account.  Once that’s been done, you can request a review from inside your Webmaster Account by following these steps:

On the Webmaster Tools Home page, select the site you want.
Click “Diagnostics” and then click “Malware.”
Click “Request a review.”

The review will be done within the next 24 hours. If nothing malicious is found on your site, Google will remove the warning. If more malicious content is found, the warning will remain in place and the report page will be updated to reflect the new discoveries.

From StopBadware:

The advantage to using StopBadware is that you do not have to create a Google Webmaster account in order to have the warning removed. To request an independent review by StopBadware (instructions copied from stopbadware.org):

  1. Search for your site in the Badware Website Clearinghouse: https://www.stopbadware.org/clearinghouse/search
  2. Find your site in the search results and click the link for your site. You will be taken to the StopBadware.org report page for your site.
  3. Click the “Request an independent review of partners’ findings” button underneath the “Current Activity” section of the report.
  4. Fill out and submit the review form.

Please note: As part of the review process, information submitted in the StopBadware.org review form will be shared with Google.

Change All Remaining Passwords

Once the warning is removed, please log in to your cPanel and change any other passwords you have. For scripts like Soholaunch, WordPress, Joomla, etc., you will need to log in to the website’s Admin area to change the passwords.

      1. Log in to your Trafficpullz dashboard: https://galaxy.trafficpullz.com
      2. Click on “My cPanel”. If you have more than one domain associated with your HostPapa account, click on the appropriate domain link, then enter your cPanel password if required.

 

 

Ignoring The Google Warning:

We strongly suggest you do not select this option.
There is a tiny text link on the Google Warning page that states: “Ignore this warning”. If you click on it, you may be able to access your site but you will expose your computer to whatever has infected your site. If it is a new form of malicious software, there is no guarantee that your anti-virus software will protect you.

 

Striking a work-life balance for the self-employed

Being your own boss is great, you get to make your own hours and set your own deadlines. But it hardly means you can take it lightly, on the contrary chances are the thoughts of your business are consuming your every waking hour. It may be extremely satisfying to be doing something that you love, but if it ends up being the only thing that you ever do, that passion may soon wear thin. What you thoroughly enjoyed doing starts to become a chore – either that or other aspects of your life will begin to suffer.

Having no set schedule to follow, combined with the pressure of growing and maintaining a business, can result in some long hours, to the point where you begin to wonder why you even decided to do this in the first place.

A lot of the self-employed struggle with knowing when to stop. The lines are so blurred between work and play that it can be challenging to find the right balance. That is why it’s so important to enforce rules to help you manage your work without burning out.

Here are some tips to help you strike a work-life balance:

1.Have dedicated working hours – While being your own boss means you get to keep hours that work for you and are flexible, there is some wisdom in having a fixed number of regular working hours every day. This helps in setting up a routine and distinguishing between work time and personal time, with the flexibility to make changes. You are more likely to be productive when you work within fixed hours than around the clock.

Also, it avoids “work” and “personal” spheres of your life overlapping too much, leading to the feeling of not being able to unplug.

Plan your day to get the important and urgent tasks done before anything else, so you can be flexible about the rest of the day.

2.Set boundaries – Have a dedicated work space at home that is separate from where you undertake leisure activities. This will help create a mental divide between your work and personal space. When you’re in that space you’re working and when you step away it’s for a break or when you’re done for the day. This will help you be more productive without getting distracted.

It’s also very important to enforce boundaries when it comes to friends and family. Let them know when you are working and can’t be interrupted. Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you are available to them at anytime. Letting other things encroach on your work periods only means that work will have to get done at another time—like when you’re supposed to be enjoying dinner with your family.

Similarly, stand strong when it comes to the times you are not available to work. Make sure your clients know when and how to reach you, and make it clear from the start that you check your email/phone messages/etc. during certain periods. This ensures that they are aware of the times when you are available to them and can schedule work accordingly.

3.Have some ‘personal time’ – Make time for hobbies, interests and pastimes that are entirely unrelated to your work. Spend quality time with friends and family and distract yourself from that never-ending to-do list. Having some quality ‘personal time’ is crucial if you want to perform at your best when you’re working. It gives you the opportunity to reboot and you will be all the better for it.

4.Create a routine that optimises your energy – A routine is more than just a time management strategy; it can also help you get into work mode and make the most of your body’s energy levels. Depending on when you perform best, whether in the morning or late at night, schedule your work to make efficient and effective use of your energy. When you’re at your productive best work on projects that require effort in terms of creativity, thinking and energy. For the times you are low on energy or capacity, you can finish up simpler routine tasks.

5.Don’t feel guilty – It’s easy to be guilt ridden when not working because you feel you’re being unproductive. Don’t let that happen. If you’re managing your work well and are able to deliver on time, then there is no reason to fret.

Remember if you are self employed, you answer to yourself, therefore any feelings of guilt that you may have for not working are entirely self-inflicted. Remind yourself why it’s important for you to have some leisure time and focus on that when pangs of guilt appear. Getting down time makes you more energised and hence more productive.

Follow these easy tips and you’re sure to have a better work-life balance that will benefit you, both professionally and personally.