Something just isn’t right with your WordPress site. Maybe you’re seeing weird links in your blog posts, or perhaps your site has suddenly stopped functioning the way it should. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a notification from your host that you’ve got infected files so you can take action. But what if you don’t? How can you find out if your site has been hacked?

Ideally all bloggers would take steps to protect their sites from hackers, such as installing a great security plugin, but unfortunately even the best preventive measures sometimes fail. If you suspect that your blog or website has been compromised, there are a number of steps you can take to check your WordPress site for malware or evidence of being hacked.

Step One: Make sure all plugins and themes are up to date. Plugin and theme developers release updates for two main reasons – to improve functionality and to patch security flaws. You should always keep your themes and plugins up to date.

Even if a plugin or theme is deactivated, its files could still allow someone to gain access to your site. Get rid of anything you don’t actually use, or keep it up to date at the very least. Be sure to take the appropriate steps to upgrade your theme safely so you don’t lose your customizations.

Step Two: Strengthen your WordPress install. There are several thing you should do every time you install WordPress, like getting rid of the “admin” user and choosing a good password. If you haven’t done those things, do them now to prevent problems in the future.

Step Three: Identify the problem. If you know something is still “off” but you aren’t sure what it is, now is the time for some basic troubleshooting. What do you see that causes you to think your site has been hacked? When did you notice it? Does the problem go away if you deactivate all your plugins? (If so, it’s probably a plugin issue.) Does the problem go away if you change to the Twenty Eleven or Twenty Twelve theme? (If so, your theme may be infected.) The more information you have, the better equipped you’ll be to take care of it.

Step Three: Scan your site. There are several methods you can use to scan your WordPress site for malware, all of which may provide different results. I recommend going through each of these just to be safe:

• Go to the Sucuri website and run a free scan. I don’t always trust the results of Sucuri scans because they try to rope you into paying them for malware removal, but this is a good way to see if your site is on any blacklists.
• Install Wordfence Security (it’s free) and run a scan. Wordfence will identify any files that have been changed, need to be updated, or may contain malicious code, as well as providing you with the information you need to fix them.
• Install Anti-Malware (also free) and run a full scan of your site. You need to register first to make sure you have the latest definitions file, but it only takes a second. This plugin will clean up all kinds of infected files and put protective measures in place to prevent them from being infected again.
• Finally, ask your host to scan your site for additional infected files. Many hosts will provide a list of files, though very few of them give you much direction on addressing the problem.

Step Four: Consider bringing in reinforcements. We do a lot of malware removal here at Nuts and Bolts Media as part of our site management and consulting services. There’s nothing worse than realizing your site has been hacked and feeling unsure about how to handle it. A number of other companies provide malware removal as well. If you aren’t comfortable going through these steps yourself, don’t ignore the problem – get some help!

The Bottom Line

If your readers are reporting issues you can’t explain or your WordPress site randomly starts misbehaving, don’t stick your head in the sand. Anything on the internet can be hacked or compromised no matter what type of security you have in place, and it happens more often than you think.

Even if nothing is wrong with your site, take 20 minutes each month and go through these steps to ensure that your site is safe and free of threats.

Do you have any other tips for finding out whether your site has been hacked? Have you ever experienced malware on your own site? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Over the weekend, I received an email from a client who wanted help adding a new WordPress site to her hosting account. I know there are certain things I need to do each time, she wrote, but it seems like I always forget at least one or two of them! 

If you’ve installed WordPress as many times as I have, these tips may seem like second nature. However, if it’s been awhile since you created a new WordPress site from scratch, or if you worry about skipping something important (like my client), this list will help jog your memory so your installation process goes smoothly.

1. Change the admin login and choose a good password.

Given the recent flood of attacks on WordPress sites, it’s essential that you take this basic step to protect your blog or website.

Many web hosts offer a 1-click WordPress installation and, depending on the script provided, you can usually change your WordPress login information right away. We provide Nuts and Bolts hosting customers with the Softaculous Apps Installer, which allows them to choose their own username and password and even tells them if the password isn’t strong enough:

If your host’s install script doesn’t allow you to choose your user name, it’s easy to change it once you’ve logged into WordPress for the first time. Simply navigate to Users > Add New in the dashboard, then create a user with a different name. (You’ll also have to use a different email address, but you can always change it later.) Be sure to use the dropdown box to make this new user an administrator.

Once the new user is created, log out and log back in with the new credentials you just created. Go to Users > All Users and delete the admin account, making sure you assign all posts to the new account. Now you can go to Users > Your Profile and change your email address on file, and your login is better protected.

2. Change the prefix for your database tables.

Again, this option should be offered as part of your WordPress installation script. By default, WordPress sets every table in your database to begin with wp_. Makes sense, right? Except would-be hackers know that WordPress uses that prefix, which could make it easier for them to gain access to your database.

If your host’s installation script offers the option, change your database prefix to something safe. Don’t use your own name or the name of your site! I usually recommend that clients use their house number and a pet’s name; no one would ever guess it, yet it’s something easy for the site’s owner to remember.

3. Set your permalinks and time zone.

The default permalinks for WordPress give you ugly URLs that aren’t SEO-friendly. You end up with things like http://domain.com/p=168 instead of something easier for readers and search engines to understand. As soon as you log into your dashboard, visit Settings > Permalinks and choose the setting that works best for you.

Similarly, it’s important to have your site run on the same time zone in which you live. That way your scheduled posts will publish when you want them to, and other system events will happen at the correct time.

4. Delete the demo content.

It’s very tempting to just edit the WordPress sample page or “Hello, World!” post and rename it. However, unless you’re very careful, you could end up with a post title of “My First Post” and a URL that says http://domain.com/hello-world/. This can be confusing for visitors as well as search engines! To be on the safe side, always delete the demo content and create new posts and pages.

5. Create a contact page.

While we’re talking about content, now is a great time to create a contact page so your visitors can get in touch with you. Even if your site is brand new, you’d be surprised how many people might have questions or feedback! It’s a good idea to include a form – I personally use Gravity Forms on all my sites, which I highly recommend, but there are a ton of free contact form plugins with fewer features if you aren’t ready to invest in a premium plugin yet.

6. Install an anti-spam plugin.

Even if you have published any posts yet, you’d be amazed how fast spambots will find your WordPress site. I have a demo site set up for a client right now, and even with search engines blocked, there were several spam comments within a few days. I am a big fan of the free Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, which adds those “Check the box to prove you aren’t a spammer” areas to your comments section. Bots are able to fill in text fields, but they usually can’t check a box. Further, the plugin adds a fake, invisible field that only bots would see and try to fill out. Since I started using GASP, I only get a few spam comments a week on all my sites combined.

7. Install a security plugin.

No matter how new your WordPress site may be, anything you put on the internet is at risk of being hacked or infected with malware. Security plugins like Wordfence Security (free and my personal favorite!) will protect your site and alert you in the event of anything suspicious. Hackers don’t always look for big, important blogs to destroy; sometimes they target smaller sites because they tend to be easier to break into. Don’t let your hard work be ruined due to a lack of security!

8. Install WP Smush.it.

If you aren’t using WP Smush.it on your WordPress sites, you’re missing a golden opportunity to improve your page load times. WP Smush.it will compress all the images you upload to your media library – the size of the image on the screen won’t change, but the size of the file will be reduced. Once you install the plugin, your images will be “smushed” automatically when you upload them, helping your site load faster for visitors.

9. Set up site stats.

Whether you use Google Analytics, Jetpack, StatCounter, or any combination of stat programs/plugins, you’ll want to set up some way to find out who’s visiting your site. Sure, you might get a little addicted to viewing said stats (not that I would know), but you can also gain lots of valuable information about how people are finding you and what posts or pages they visit.

10. Set up social sharing options.

Who wants to write content if no one reads it?!?! Make it easy for your visitors to share your posts on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ by setting up some kind of social sharing capability. Popular plugins include Digg Digg, Jetpack’s sharing options, and Shareaholic (though I’m personally not a fan of Shareaholic because it can drag down load times). No matter how you choose to implement it, social sharing is key if you want to gain exposure for your WordPress site.

Bonus Tip: Create a Disclosures page.

As I detailed in a previous post, every website needs a Disclosures page. Even if you’re just writing blog posts with an audience of three people, the FTC requires any website (in the US at least) to disclose certain information to visitors. Google AdSense also requires a privacy policy. With recent updates to the FTC guidelines, it’s more important than ever to make sure your site is compliant.

There you have it – ten eleven easy tasks that will get you started with a brand new WordPress site! Have I left anything out? What do you change or set up every time you create a new WordPress website or blog?

This guest post is brought to you by WePay – the easiest way to accept credit cards online.

Want to improve your business presence when people visit your website? Want to drive traffic to your business with very little work? Interested in winning repeat business without spending hours every month on marketing?

Nope, we’re not trying to sell you our latest passive income product. Nope – we’re just talking about the power of testimonials. Yes, those little blurbs you see on other people’s websites talking about how great the person is and what a great job they do. Those couple sentences can really do the trick when you’re trying to up your freelance game.

But are they really that powerful? Here are a few ways testimonials can change the way you do business overnight.

Credibility

Knowing whom you’re really dealing with on the Internet is sometimes tough. A small business that you came across may look like they have everything together, but who are they really? Is everything they say true, or just a fabrication to take my money and run?

This is what your clients go through every time they come across a website that doesn’t have any sort of “back up” to its claims. However, as soon as they come across your testimonials page, all this changes. Suddenly they’re faced with a handful of quotes from respectable sources telling them that you’re awesome.

Better yet, you’ve kindly included links to the clients’ websites, so if customer really wants to check on your sources they can. You know that lying on the Internet is one of its oldest traditions, and you want your customers to feel totally safe.

Repeat Business

After a customer visits your website for the first time and reads your testimonials, they may decide to hire you. After they do and you (hopefully) knock their socks off, you’ve just hit them with a one two punch.

Not only did they read about your great work, they also experienced it firsthand. This means their pre-hiring assumptions were confirmed. When they need services like yours again, who do you think they’ll call? Your testimonials have confirmed their assumptions about your business and now they’re a client ; a client who will call you whenever they need work done.

It Shows Pride in Your Work

Some may think that including testimonials on a website is gloating, however that is not the case. You work hard on your business, and you want to talk about it and gain more business. You’re proud of your business and you want others to know it. What’s wrong with that, especially if it helps you get more of that same work in the future?

Furthermore, showing pride in your work exudes confidence to your clients. They don’t want to hire someone who “sort of likes what I did, I guess.” They want a freelancer who has no problem standing behind what he did and saying it’s awesome. If you do that for others, they think, he or she will do the same for my assignment.

Of course after you’ve completed a new assignment, go ahead and ask for another testimonial. It is more than likely that they’ll be happy to hand one over. Keep in mind you don’t want to have 10,000 testimonials all over your website because that would be over the top (and a little obscene). Keeping them up to date, though, means your blurbs will never be outdated and stale.

How do you ask your clients for testimonials? 

People who are familiar with Nuts and Bolts Media are probably aware that we offer three main services: website design, web hosting, and WordPress consulting. However, you may not know that web hosting was never part of the original business plan, or that, thanks to my frustration over a $4 app for iPhone and iPad, hosting has become one of the largest parts of my business.

The Story of the $4 App

When I started my personal blog in early 2011, I signed up for shared hosting with HostGator. Out of all the big name hosting companies, HostGator is the only one I’ve ever recommended; their support was excellent, my sites loaded quickly, and I had little to no downtime. Over time, I added a few friends to my account so they wouldn’t have to pay for their own hosting.

One day I got an email stating that my “unlimited” account was using too many processes. Apparently you can have as many domains and use as much disk space and bandwidth as you want, as long as you can do it within fewer than 25 processes. (Doesn’t sound unlimited to me!) I called support, who advised me to sign up for a reseller account so that each site could have its own cPanel and its own set of process limits.

I switched to reseller, began charging each of my friends enough to cover the increased monthly cost (still cheaper for them than opening their own accounts), and all was well. However, giving each of my friends their own cPanels meant spending more time helping them with random issues and questions.

In the meantime, HostGator was acquired by Endurance International Group, the same huge conglomerate that now owns Bluehost, FatCow, A Small Orange, HostMonster, JustHost, and a large number of other hosting companies.

A few weeks after the switch, I came across Host Manager, an app for iPhone and iPad that would allow me to manage my reseller clients on the go. This is perfect! I thought. Now I can deal with all this stuff even when I’m not in front of my computer. 

Except I needed to install a Perl module on the server for the app to work. And as a reseller, I didn’t have root access to the server. I opened a support ticket and expected the issue to be fixed within minutes.

HostGator Gets Greedy

Imagine my shock when HostGator refused to install the Perl module I needed to use my app. “Sorry,” they told me, “but we can’t install a module that might affect other users on the server. You’ll need to upgrade to a VPS if you want to use it.”

There were a few problems with that suggestion:

1. The Perl module in question wouldn’t have affected other users in any way unless they wanted to use the Host Manager app, too.
2. HostGator’s VPS hosting is ridiculously overpriced.
3. I’d read many negative experiences from people using HostGator for VPS and/or dedicated hosting.
4. I didn’t need a VPS – even with my friends onboard, we were perfectly fine using shared hosting at that point. There was no reason to upgrade and pay more money.

I tried pleading my case but HostGator’s new post-acquisition support wasn’t hearing it. I threatened to leave, and they continued pushing me to upgrade to a VPS despite my argument that I didn’t need it. It gave me flashbacks of dealing with Bluehost’s support on behalf of my design clients – HostGator no longer provided the awesome support I’d recommended so many times in the past.

Nuts and Bolts Media Expands

I spent a long time thinking about HostGator’s abrupt decline in customer service, as well as the $4 I’d wasted on an app that I desperately needed but couldn’t use. I thought about my clients, who had many complaints about Bluehost, Dreamhost, GoDaddy (shudder), and other big name companies. And I decided I could do better.

I sat down and made a list of the most common issues my clients had with their hosts, going back through emails and notes from consulting calls to look for exact quotes. This was the list I came up with:

• My site is loading slow and I don’t know why.
• Sometimes my sites go down for hours at a time.
• They treat me like a number.
• When I ask for help, support just sends me a link to an article that goes over my head.
• I have to upgrade my account and pay more money to make cPanel backups (Bluehost) or get decent load times (GoDaddy).
• My site has malware and GoDaddy won’t help me get rid of it unless I buy their “malware protection package.”

Looking at the list, I could feel my clients’ frustration on top of my own, and I knew it was time to act. I purchased server space in the same Dallas, TX server farm that is used by big companies like Google. I shook the rust off my brain and reacquainted myself with Linux, which I hadn’t used in over a decade. In September 2012, Nuts and Bolts Hosting opened for business alongside the design and consulting services we were already offering.

How Expansion Has Affected My Business

I try to be realistic above all else, and I have no plans to make millions of dollars from the hosting part of my business. Right now I earn enough to break even plus a *little* wiggle room to cover all the licenses (cPanel, Softaculous, WHMCS, etc.) I had to purchases to make things user friendly for my customers. Eventually I expect it to become profitable but that probably won’t happen for a number of years.

Running a hosting company, however small, takes a considerable amount of time and effort. I’m constantly tweaking the configuration of the servers to make sure sites load quickly. Customers email daily with questions, some of which aren’t exactly simple to fix. I spent Christmas Eve troubleshooting an email issue when I was supposed to be celebrating with my family.

All that said, I love providing superior hosting services to my clients. I love getting their feedback, receiving their testimonials, and reading awesome review posts (like this one). Every time a client expresses happiness with their decision to host with Nuts and Bolts, I remember why I did this in the first place.

If you’re considering expanding your business, whether it’s a solo freelance venture or a company, here are a few questions to ask yourself.

Is there a need for this? I started offering hosting because there was a clear need for something better. If you want to offer a new product or service, make sure it’s something you know will benefit your existing and/or future customers.

Can I make a profit from it? Money isn’t the most important thing, but it’s always a factor, especially if you’re a small business owner. Make sure that the new arm of your business will pay for itself within a reasonable timeframe and will eventually be worth your effort.

Do I have time for something else? Some additions to your business may not be very time consuming, while others could take up more time than everything else combined. Make sure you’re able to devote the time to a new project before you commit to it.

Does expanding make sense? Finally, make sure your plans for expanding your business fit into your overall business plan. For instance, it wouldn’t make much sense for a dentist to sell car parts in the front lobby! Anything that will divert time and energy from your existing offerings must be a good match to be worth it.

Have you ever been involved in a business expansion? How did it work out for you?

Conventional blogging wisdom provides all kinds of ways we can make our blogs better. Content is king! Write epic shit! Engage your audience! It seems many of us are just waiting for the right moment to quit our jobs and make money online, and we all love reading articles that might help us reach those goals sooner.

One tip I’ve always found interesting is the adage, “Treat your blog like a business.” On one hand, I can see why it makes sense to take a professional approach to blogging. After all, it’s serious bloggers who use my services and provide me with the income I need to pay my bills. At the same time, though, I can’t help thinking maybe that kind of advice should be qualified a little better to prevent confusion.

Blogging as a Business

Treating your blog like a business can mean a lot of different things. Maybe you decide to invest in a professional design so your readers are greeted with a site that looks awesome and functions well. Perhaps you look for ways to monetize your blog’s content without alienating visitors. Maybe you even create an LLC or other type of legitimate business entity to protect your online income.

It’s smart to keep good records related to your blog, especially if you decide to accept any form of advertising. It’s also a good idea to respond to comments and emails professionally, not to mention spending time writing great posts – you never know who’s reading! All of those actions demonstrate a business-oriented mindset and make perfect sense.

Many bloggers eventually expand their horizons, either by writing for other blogs as a staff writer or offering related services such as commenting, blog migrations, SEO help, etc. In those situations, it’s obvious that your blog has become a business – it’s the platform you use to provide information and spread the word about your skills. Your blog can even serve as a sort of resume for potential employers. (Make no mistake – this is the 21st century and people do search for you online!)

How Do You Know if Your Blog is a Business?

If I heard someone say they owned a blogging-related business, several things might come to mind:

• This person is a freelance writer
• This person is an internet marketer
• This person gets paid to write blog posts
• This person offers some kind of service relevant to bloggers

Out of the millions of active blogs online, how many would you say belong to people who are doing any of those things? Maybe 5 percent? Less? Yeah, I’d say there aren’t too many people who fit one of those descriptions. Yet you’d never know that to see the number of people insisting their blog is a business despite all evidence to the contrary.

Businesses earn money. If you blog for fun and earn zero dollars doing it, your blog isn’t a business. That’s not to say it may not become one at some point, but you can’t call something a business without income. That would be like me saying that I own a music business just because I sing in the shower where no one can hear me.

Businesses are time-consuming. Obviously we’re all familiar with the concept of passive income. But even passive income has to be managed! If you only log into your blog once every few months to write a post about how busy you’ve been, odds are good that your blog isn’t a business.

Businesses provide something of value. While we all want to think we provide great information to our loyal readers, sometimes that’s just not the case. Let’s not kid ourselves – there are a lot of bloggers out there who are terrible writers. Also, unless your content is incredibly original and/or ground-breaking, someone has probably said the same thing before. So if that’s the case and you aren’t selling a product or providing some kind of service on top of writing content, your blog is probably not a business.

Businesses can be sold. Could your blog continue to function without you? In other words, if I purchased your blog tomorrow, would it continue earning money and providing whatever value it provides right now? Would you be able to explain your blog’s purpose and why it’s worth a large sum of money to a potential buyer? If not, you guessed it – your blog is not a business.

Why Does This Matter?

It’s essential to know the difference between treating your blog like a business and running an actual business. I’ve seen supposedly experienced bloggers give false hope to newer bloggers by talking about how they can earn money online. I’ve also watched friends list their blogs on sites like Flippa for thousands of dollars, only to be embarrassed when no one saw the value in what they were selling. These are just two situations where you will benefit from knowing if you have a blog, a business, or a combination of both.

Being able to carve out your own little chunk of the internet and earn a living from it is an amazing thing (I speak from experience). But it’s unrealistic to think that every blogger can make it big. In fact, even though my personal blog earns a bit of money each month, there’s no way I could consider that my full-time job. Online income is real and there are tons of ways to get it, but not without the same hard work and dedication you’d put into building a brick and mortar company.

Do you consider your blog a business? Why or why not?

This guest post is brought to you by WePay – the easiest way to accept credit cards online.

Starting a new business comes with mixed feelings – excitement and hope for the future, but also a fear you won’t be noticed. Conventional wisdom now states that anyone with a laptop and strong bootstraps can start a business, so why should anyone use your services in particular?

The same busy world that has produced so many new businesses also has many ways to ensure customers everywhere will discover your great new business. You don’t want to spend a lot of money, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money. Try the following tips to help differentiate your business!

Social Media

Social media is absolutely everywhere now, and it’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways businesses can reach customers. Honestly, it’s a little amazing these services are free. Can you imagine, even twenty years ago, instantly marketing to thousands of people across the planet with just a few clicks of your mouse?

Funny thing is, so many companies out there aren’t taking advantage of what social media has to offer. Make sure to create an account on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn for your business. You don’t have to continue using all of them, as not every business will thrive on every social media site. But not trying them at all means you’ll never know what works best for you.

Go Outside

Making yourself heard sometimes means finding your niche. That niche may actually be waiting for you in your own local community, so go outside!

Find out if there are any upcoming community events like fundraisers or charity runs and sign up for them. If you can have a booth, that’s great, but not entirely necessary. The important thing is to simply go out and meet people in your local area.

Above all else you have to be enthusiastic about the community and your business. Your friends and neighbors want to know you’re dedicated to what you believe in and that you have a passion for your company. If you prove this to them it could lead to great things down the line, including their undying loyalty.

Online Communities

Speaking of communities, people tend to flock where they feel comfortable. When it comes to the digital world, that means heading to places where people can talk about the things they love without feeling guilty. There are online communities for literally everything you can imagine, including the items you sell in your shop or the services you provide.

Sometimes you have to go where the customers are and not the other way around, so hop online and find where they are! There could be a Facebook page dedicated to your industry or a chat forum somewhere with thousands of posts. You may even stumble across a weekly Twitter chat you could hop into.

Whatever the case, ease into it lightly. Don’t go in with guns blazing thinking you’re going to sell your services or products right away by spamming links to your website. Approach the community like you would customers on the street – ease into the conversation, actually talk to them like human beings. Eventually they’ll come around to checking out what you have to offer.

Think Geographically

Though you may have a business that can serve clients anywhere in the world, many clients will want a service provider just across town. So make use of free resources such as a free online YellowPages.com listing and an updated Yelp profile for your business. If you’re web savvy, add geotags on your website so people near you will have an easier time finding your web presence.  If you choose to go the paid advertising route, target your Facebook or AdWords ads geographically, too.

How do you market your company on the cheap?

Do you remember the moment when you first realized you could make money on the internet? I remember vividly because it wasn’t very long ago.

I had just returned to blogging after an absence of more than a decade (“blogging” wasn’t even a word when I left), and everything was different. There were alternatives to static HTML sites and Geocities. There were enormous blogs with millions of followers. There were people getting book deals left and right – and even people making a full-time income just from their blogs. 

I was far from the first person to wonder how they were doing it. How was it possible to go from a little dinky blog with 10 visitors a week to thousands of dollars in online income? And how could I get in on it?

Well, I’m sick of all the secrecy. I’m not giving away anything you can’t hunt down with some well-worded Google searches, but it’s always funny to me how reluctant people are to talk about private advertising. Here’s the truth about sponsored posts – where they come from, how people get them, and why no one talks about them.

Private Ads = Sponsored Posts (For the Most Part)

Put simply, private ads mean that someone is paying a blogger to put up a link, graphic, and/or blog post. For example, a company may pay a certain dollar amount per month or year for a banner ad.

This isn’t as simple as it sounds, however. Most of the time, when a company pays upfront like that, they aren’t really placing the ad in hopes that a bunch of people will click on it (though everyone involved pretends they are). Instead, they are placing links in hopes of manipulating PageRank.

If a large blog or website with high PageRank links to your blog, it’s like they’re saying, “Hey, this site is great and I endorse it.” A little bit of that site’s “link juice” is passed onto your site, and with enough of those “references” your own PageRank will increase.

So what do companies do? They pay employees to scour the internet for high-quality blogs in their niche and convince the bloggers to link to the company’s website. Most of the time they’ll try to do that for free by asking to “guest post” on your blog, but if you’re savvy enough to recognize the tactic for what it is, many of them will offer to pay for the link. A popular blog can receive dozens of these requests in a given month, resulting in thousands of dollars in income.

So Why’s That a Secret?

The problem is, Google doesn’t like it when people or companies try to manipulate PageRank. If you can buy your way to a good ranking, PageRank is no longer a measure of quality – it’s a measure of who has the most money to spend. If Google’s top secret algorithm detects what it calls “unnatural links,” or links that were placed for the sole purpose of gaming the system, you could suddenly find yourself with a PageRank of zero.

Believe me when I tell you, the googlebots are very skilled at finding paid links. Just yesterday, several of my fellow bloggers woke up to find they’d been “Google slapped” during the night and now have no PageRank. This also happened to a large number of blogs in spring 2012, including one of my own.

(Note: There are legitimate forms of sponsorship, such as when a company sends a product for review and the content is clearly marked as sponsored or compensated. If a company asks you to identify a paid post as a “guest post” or not at all, that should be considered a red flag.)

Why Risk It?

Bloggers accept private ads for two main reasons: (1) You don’t have to have a lot of traffic to get them and (2) you can make a TON of money from them, especially if you own multiple blogs in the same niche.

Other monetization strategies such as affiliate ads or Google AdSense require thousands of visits for any real results. For example, my personal blog gets about 50,000 pageviews per month, 60% of which come from search (search traffic is more likely to click on ads).

You know how much I make from AdSense? About $50 a month if I’m lucky. It’s obvious that I’m not going to get rich from those types of advertising. By comparison, sponsored posts seem like an easy way to make extra money.

The Bottom Line

Sponsored posts are a popular form of advertising because bloggers receive a lot of financial gain for very little work. However, sponsored posts can be detrimental to your site’s quality and can even have a negative effect on where your posts appear in search results.

If you choose to accept sponsored posts, be aware that you could lose your PageRank at any time. Since PageRank affects pricing for these posts (higher PageRank means you can charge more per link), your income stream could be cut off overnight, leaving you with a blog that looks spammy and no longer earns money.

While it’s true that legitimate monetization strategies are more difficult, that’s because there is no good way to get rich quick on the internet. No matter what the gurus say (you know, the ones selling their ebooks, coaching, etc. that are supposed to make you rich), the only way to make real money online is to provide something awesome that people want.

It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll accept sponsored posts on your blog, but it’s important to be aware of the potential consequences. Stay informed! See this video from Google’s Matt Cutts regarding unnatural links.

I receive emails every day from people who want to make their websites look awesome. After all, that’s what I do! But many of the people who contact me are also concerned about the cost of a full website design. It’s a big investment, especially if you’re just starting out and can’t justify spending a lot of money. Last week, someone asked me, “Isn’t there a way I can make a halfway decent website on my own until I can afford to hire you?”

The part of me that owns a business and needs to pay my bills wanted to reply, “Sorry, you’re stuck with a crappy site until you cough up some cash!” But while I do believe there’s no substitute for a professional website design, I’m also a human being. I don’t think it’s fair that someone with more money to spend on a website should automatically be perceived as more capable or competent, nor is it fair for someone with a limited budget to be stuck with a horrible 1990s website.

Here are some tips for a DIY website you can be proud to show the world:

1. Use a great theme.

When it comes to easy, professional WordPress design, a free theme usually won’t cut it. I use the Genesis framework for nearly all my clients’ sites, but Genesis also offers a ton of child themes that look great right out of the box. A developer license for the framework (meaning you can use it on as many sites as you want) is only $59.95, with child themes available for less than $19 each.

Other advantages of using Genesis:

• Most child themes are mobile responsive, meaning your site will look great on tablets and phones
• There are numerous websites and plugins devoted to making Genesis easy to use
• The cost of the framework is a one-time cost – no renewal fees to continue getting updates and support

If you want to create a website without a designer, it simply doesn’t get any better than the Genesis framework.

CHECK OUT GENESIS

2. Get a logo.

If you can only spend money for one part of your website, spend it on a professional logo. Yes, you can make a header in a program like PicMonkey or even MS Paint, but the problem with those is that people can tell you made them in PicMonkey or MS Paint. And don’t even get me started on the ones you can buy on sites like Fiverr – I can spot them a mile away, and so can everyone else.

Your brand tells people a lot about you, and your logo is the symbol they use to remember you and whatever you’re offering, whether that’s products, services, or blog posts. You want your logo to be memorable in a good way, not something people can only recall because of how hard they laughed at it. Even if the rest of your website is pretty lackluster, a great logo goes a long way in presenting yourself to the online world.

I offer a ton of branding options, as do many other designers. Don’t scrimp on branding – it’s the most important aspect of your image!

3. Choose good colors.

The color palette you choose for your website will tell visitors a lot about you, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it. For example, a dark website will immediately make me think its owner is (A) colorblind, (B) depressed, or (C) a teenager who enjoys punk metal. Think of some big name companies and look up their websites – you’ll notice that the most professional websites out there are using color wisely, with plenty of white space to break things up.

Choose an odd number of colors – 1 or 3 is usually plenty – and use them alongside neutrals such as white, gray, and black. Don’t overload your visitors with a ton of contrasting patterns – it’s okay for some things to have a plain white background! When a site has too many different colors, it’s hard for visitors’ eyes to know where to look. This color palette website is a good place to start looking for complementary colors.

4. Make sure your site is easy to navigate.

Imagine that you’re encountering your own website for the first time. Is the point of the website clear within the first few seconds? If not, you could be losing visitors. Decide what action you want your visitors to take – signing up for a mailing list, reading articles, making a purchase, etc. – and gear your homepage content toward that action. Don’t assume that any of your visitors know what you do; even if your company name is Bob’s Car Detail Shop, there will always be people who have no idea exactly what you offer.

Anticipate questions your visitors might have and address them through a page like “About Us,” “What We Do,” or “Our Services.” Each page should have a clearly defined call to action, such as a contact form, links to guide visitors to other parts of the site, or buttons to make a purchase. Have a friend click through the site and look for anything that isn’t clear or needs more explanation.

DIY Websites: A Good Idea?

I will always believe that it’s easier to hire a web designer, especially if design just isn’t your thing. That said, it’s entirely possible to make an awesome website on your own. By purchasing a great theme and a logo, using great colors, and making your site user-friendly, you can develop a presence online without spending a lot of money. And just think – when your website takes off and you become wildly successful, you can always hire someone to make your great site look even better!

Have you ever done your own website design to avoid hiring a designer? How did it turn out? I’d love to see your DIY site!

Lately I’ve been drowning in consulting calls on top of my scheduled design work. Often, people are calling because they paid a lot of money for website design or development, fell victim to one of a number of scams, and need advice regarding what to do next.

No matter how many stories I hear about “designers” who are unethical, unskilled, or just plain deceitful, I’m always a little shocked at some of the ways they find to con people out of money. These are not clueless people I’m talking about, either – they are fully aware of what to look for when hiring a designer and still end up in terrible situations sometimes.

Here are some of the most common web design scams and how to avoid them.

The Scam: The Disappearing Designer

The Scenario: You find a designer with good pricing and a nice portfolio. You email a few times, get a quote for the work, and decide to hire the person. Once they receive your deposit, you never hear from them again. OR the work is finished, you make the final payment, then you never receive the completed site design.

What to do: Hopefully you paid via Paypal (or a credit card) and can file a dispute to recover your money. Email the designer one last time and say “If I don’t hear from you by X date, I will be filing a dispute with Paypal.” Once that date passes, don’t hesitate – get your money back and move on.

How to avoid this scam: When you look at a designer’s portfolio, take note of a few of the websites’ names and look them up. If the design is no longer there or the site doesn’t exist, consider those huge red flags. (You should also check the site’s URL to make sure it’s not just a dummy site on a subdomain.) Otherwise, email the sites’ owners directly and ask them to tell you about their experience with the designer. Anyone can make up testimonials and put them on a site – better to get it straight from the source.

It’s also a good idea to hold final payment until the design is live on your site. Many designers (myself included) prefer payment before transferring the files to protect themselves, but remind them of the leverage they hold (your hosting login, FTP credentials, etc.) and they may be willing to make an exception.

The Scam: The Broken Promises Designer

The Scenario: We’ve all heard this one before. Your designer promises a Lexus design and your site looks more like a Ford Festiva. Or (true story from a consulting client) you pay for a particular theme, then the designer uses a free theme instead and pockets the money. In other words, you aren’t getting what you paid for.

What to do: If a design doesn’t meet your expectations, please address that with the designer before you do anything else. Sometimes communication breakdowns happen and the designer may be more than willing to fix the problem. Be sure to reference specifics from your contract or emails so both parties know what the expectations were versus what you received.

How to avoid this scam: Never, ever, EVER hire a web designer who doesn’t use some kind of formal contract. For instance, I provide my prospective clients with a detailed quote that lists exactly what elements they’ve requested as well as the cost. If they accept the quote as is, they are directed to my terms and conditions page, which outlines details like image copyrights, timelines, and payment. They must agree to those terms via a form and pay a deposit before I schedule their projects. It’s a bit complex at times, but my clients have very few questions about how things will work because I’ve already answered them.

ALWAYS purchase any themes, fonts, graphics, etc. yourself if at all possible. That way you will have access to support and updates instead of depending on your designer to provide them, and you’ll know that your money is going toward its intended purpose. You’ll also have those files if something happens and you end up hiring someone else.

The Scam: The Hijacker

The Scenario: This one has happened to two of my design clients so far. You hire a designer, give said designer access to your site, and suddenly you’re locked out and your site has been filled with malware. OR you find out down the road that there are spam links, malicious code, or other “goodies” coded into your site’s files.

What to do: If you are locked out of your site or find malware, contact your host immediately. The support staff will be able to help you regain access and track down the infected files. And if your host is halfway decent, they won’t charge you anything for it. (Shameless plug: Nuts and Bolts Media provides malware removal as one of our consulting services, as well as free malware removal for our hosting clients.)

How to avoid this scam: There’s no politically correct way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it: Be very cautious when hiring a designer from a foreign country. I’m not saying all of them will hijack your site, and I’m not saying a US-based designer won’t hijack your site, but I can’t ignore the fact that most of these scams seem to come from overseas. On my hosting servers, I block hack attempts from countries like India, China, Pakistan, Russia, and Romania on a daily basis. That said, I also have a good friend who lives in Bulgaria and does excellent graphic work. All I’m saying is be cautious – be sure to checks references as I mentioned above.

Overall Tips for a Great Web Design Experience

The internet is a vast place; it’s impossible to be 100% confident when you send money to someone you’ve never met. Unfortunately, thanks to scams like the ones in this post, it’s necessary to take some steps before you ever hire a web designer.

• Talk to the designer on the phone before you hire him/her. Some designers may not be comfortable with that, and while that’s their choice, ask yourself if you’re okay with hiring someone you can’t even speak to first.
• As I mentioned, contact some of the designer’s clients to get the inside scoop. Visit some sites they’ve designed. Do your homework.
• Don’t be a tightwad. Yes, there are people who will offer a website design for $75, but that doesn’t mean the quality is going to be great. Super cheap design work is often a sign a of potential scam. That said, you should also compare prices to make sure you aren’t paying $10,000 for a simple $500 job.
• Come prepared. Do some research and have a good idea of what you’re looking for in a web design. The more details you provide, the easier it will  be for your designer to meet your expectations.
• Go with your gut. If anything at all gives you pause or causes concern, do yourself a favor and don’t hire that designer. Chances are you’re feeling that way for a reason.

Have you ever been the victim of a web design scam? Got any other tips for vetting designers? Tell us about it in the comments – we’d love to hear what you think!

Spend enough time surfing the internet and you’ll learn an interesting fact: Everyone is trying to sell you something. Even when people start out with the purest of intentions, the act of blogging (or even just reading blogs) eventually results in the epiphany, I can make money doing this!

I speak from experience. My full-time income comes from my business, 80-90% of which flows through this very website. And while I make an effort not to be one of those slimy, in-your-face kind of salespeople, the reason I do the things I do online is because I like being self-employed and able to pay my bills. That means that my blog posts, emails, Facebook updates, and even Instagram pictures are created with an end goal of making money.

I think most of us start out looking for the “quick wins” – things like private advertising, affiliate links, and brand ambassadorships. And there is nothing wrong with those things; you can make a ton of money once you get traffic flowing to your site. After awhile, though, it becomes clear that the real money (in most cases) comes from original products and services.

Online Sales: That’s Where it’s At

Isn’t the internet amazing? If there’s anything in the universe you want to see, learn, practice, or do, you can find it with a few clicks. The coolest part is that you don’t have to be any kind of expert to create online content. While it always helps to know what you’re talking about, it’s not necessary to have decades of experience or a PhD in a particular subject – you can share what you know on the internet, and you can make money doing it.

Let’s say you love gardening. In the course of taking care of your garden, you discover that a combination of salt, garlic, and grape Kool-Aid makes your petunias grow. (Clearly I know nothing about gardening and this is a made up example. If you try it at home, please take pictures so I can laugh.) You might immediately log onto your favorite gardening forum to share the news with other enthusiasts. But would it occur to you that this is also an income opportunity? Would you start packaging and selling your miracle product online?

Some people would say, “Andrea, you’re insane. Why would people pay for something they can easily make themselves?” They do it every day. Society loves convenience, and if there’s a way to reach a particular goal (awesome petunias, in this case) without making much effort, you can bet people will be all over it. And if they can order from their computers and have it shipped? Even better! The only question is whether you’ll be the one to profit or the one complaining that someone beat you to it.

How to Launch a Product Successfully

Since I hang out with bloggers and freelancers a lot, I’ve been behind the scenes for a number of product launches. It’s always so exciting to see an idea come to life, especially when it helps a friend make money and feel successful.

But it can also be nerve-wracking. Ever watch helplessly while a friend’s great idea falls flat on its face? I have, and it sucks. Even worse is the time spent helping said friend go over, in excruciating detail, what went wrong. The only good thing that can come from a failed product launch is what I’m here to share with you today – learning some good lessons that can help others avoid the same pitfalls with their own products.

Here are the 3 major elements of a successful product launch:

1. People can find your product.

If you cured cancer and never told anyone, it would be impossible for you (or people with cancer) to benefit. Likewise, if you launch a product and no one knows it exists, you can’t realistically expect to make money. Before you ever even create something, you need to spend time making sure people have heard of it. Send a prototype to some friends (or better yet, bloggers who will write about how great it is). Make a landing page to build anticipation for your product, then share the heck out of that landing page. Line up some advertising and/or reviews. Make sure to use SEO – but not spammy SEO – on the product website to draw in search traffic.

Most of all, it’s essential that you allow adequate time for the development, improvement, and launch of the product. You can’t write a book on Monday, put it on Amazon on Tuesday, and become a millionaire on Wednesday. That would be awesome, but it’s not the way the world works!

2. People want your product. 

This should be a no-brainer, but I feel like it needs to be said. When you’re thinking about selling something, you MUST be sure that someone is willing to buy it. (And no, your best friend and your mother don’t count.) You also need to be able to articulate why someone would want it. What problem does your product solve? What question does it answer? How will someone’s life be better if they buy what you’re selling? Until you have identified your potential customers or clients and can answer those questions, you aren’t ready to launch. Period.

Be careful not to fall into the trap of inventing demand in your head. I’ve been guilty of this myself. Sometimes you can get so excited about a product idea that you convince yourself everyone will want it. Next thing you know, there are 100 cases of premium cockroach treats in your garage and you haven’t had a single sale. You absolutely must get feedback from other people (and develop a thick skin so you can handle what they have to say).

3. The price is right. And worth it.

I’m not really sure when the pricing for online products became so inflated, but it really is. $97 seems to be the magical number. And as an avid consumer of information products such as ebooks and online training courses, let me break it to you gently. I have purchased many products, some of which were wonderful. But I can think of very few that were worth a $97 price tag.

Be realistic. Your product is your baby, so of course you value it. But how much will other people value it? Don’t get caught up in the whole “This will save people X hours of googling, so it’s worth hundreds of dollars,” thing. Look at the product for what it actually is. Would you pay $97 for a book at a bookstore? No? Then why should someone pay that much for your 20-page PDF? It’s better to price fairly and leave people thinking they got a great deal (and providing positive worth of mouth) than pricing so high that people feel ripped off. At the same time, don’t give your product away – there’s a fine line between good and bad pricing, and it’s important to learn the difference.

What Are You Waiting For? Go Make Money!

A product launch with the elements above is still not guaranteed to succeed. I don’t claim to hold any huge secrets to making money online – if I did, you can bet I’d be charging $97 for them! (Kidding!) But I’m confident that selling a well-priced product that people want and can find is more likely to result in a great launch than a ridiculously expensive product that no one wants.

The only surefire way to fail and launching and selling a product is never having the guts to try it. So get out there! Try it out! Develop something awesome that will make the world a better place. You may not become filthy rich, but I bet you’d be surprised at just how successful you can be.