The Value Of Backups – WordPress

Our site was attacked recently with vicious malware that went deep into our website. No user information was taken, that wasn't the point of this nasty thing. The point was to redirect all of our visitors automatically to their junk. That junk could be either something to buy, or something that you would need to download in order for it to do its sinister duties.

As stated, there were no user accounts affected and no passwords or sensitive data stolen. It took many hours to finally remove all of the scripts, but it's finally done, thanks in large part to the team at IONOS.

I can't stress enough how important site security is. If you can afford it, buy it. Find the best site security package for your site and buy it. IONOS currently has a scan and remove security package for just $5.99/month. You can find that here.

Backing up your WordPress website is so vital to the success of your business. Setting up automatic backups are even better. We took some time off and one of the reasons this penetrated so deeply into our site was because our previous backup process stored data for 5 days. By the time we got back to work, it had been well beyond that, so our most recent backup was compromised. It is good practice to backup daily onto a local hard drive. Here at Royalty Online Business, that was a practice of the past, however, we chose (incorrectly) to go with a paid solution that just wasn't right for us.

There are great plugins out there, paid and free, that back up your website for you automatically and daily. A good choice would be to find a plugin that allows you to download the backups off of their servers. Do some research, make sure your information (and more importantly, your customers) is safe. Again, make sure you're saving local copies of your sites data on a safe and secure drive or server.

Lastly, keep your plugins updated.

This malware took advantage of a plugin that was not updated. Most plugin owners or businesses take security very seriously. When you have 800,000 people using your plugin, that is probably a wise thing to do. While there are options to keep plugins updated automatically, it is important to note that not all updates will work with your version of WordPress. Keep that in mind when updating your plugin. If it's a security patch, maybe disable your plugin until it's compatible with your version of WordPress.

Security is everything. Keep your business safe. Keep your customers safe.

The Importance of Articles

When first starting a new online home business, one of your first questions might be, “how do I get traffic to my website?”. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. This reason alone is why 96% of new online businesses fail. They simply cannot drive traffic to their sites and thus, never make any sales or very little sales. Before I continue, that’s a big point. You need something to sell. If you have nothing to sell, you will likely never make money online. If you’re trying to make money by filling out surveys or some cheap and or “free” service, I can almost promise you, you will not make significant money online. Now, mind you, I’m not trying to place a rain cloud over your day, it’s simply the truth.  

So, if you do not have a product to sell online, do not worry. There’s something that I am sure you have heard of. It’s called, “affiliate marketing”. Basically, affiliate marketing is when you become an affiliate of a program or a product that allows you to sell that certain program or product and receive a commission on each sale. If you understand the process correctly, then you can make literally, thousands, upon thousands of dollars. Royalty Online Business can help you set up your online business, don’t be afraid to ask us for help. We truly are here for you. The best part? We don’t charge you to help you. We want you to succeed. I’m sure you’re more interested in “The Importance of Article Marketing”, so without further ado, here’s the scoop. 

When a search engine sends out its “crawlers”, it crawls your site for information. Let’s continue in photo imagination. These little crawlers crawl all over your website, feeding the engine information about your site and indexing it into the system. When a user types in a request for information, ie. What is email marketing? (as an example), the search engine pulls up the most relevant information it can, based on the information stored in its system. Mind you, this process is much more complex and complicated than what was just described, but, this is the short version. It also takes into account, the popularity of your site.  

Keywords. 

So, let’s say that you wanted to start a business online that focused primarily on selling shoes. You want to have as much content on your site as possible about, well, nothing but shoes. When I say nothing but shoes, I mean, nothing shoes. When the search engine crawls your site, it will recognize that your site is about nothing but shoes. It will find how many times the word “shoes” or “ laces” or “shoe soles” etc. are in your site and will determine the relevance to that particular user. Yes, relevance. Search engines are becoming more complex literally, every day. Our phones request information about us, our computers, facebook, twitter, etc. Apps ask for information, which we unknowingly say yes to. This all goes into what a modern day search engine analyzes to bring us what IT thinks is relevant, based upon our habits, friends, location, social habits (or lack of) and so much more. So, when you’re writing article, make sure you include your primary keywords in your article.  

Links. 

So, the user is on your page. They are reading whatever it is that your article is about. They enjoy and most importantly, without realizing it, they trust YOU. So now what? You have to link to your own material. Let’s say you have a primary page that you want people to see, well, you need to link that page to the article that the user is reading. If you don’t, chances are, they’re going to move on with the wealth of knowledge you just bestowed upon them. So, capture them. Oh and make sure you get their email address. Email marketing is very important the reason why is… Well, you’ll just have to come back to find out.