Firstly, open up your blog in a new window and put in “/wp-includes/”. If its blank, shows an Apache page or a 404 page not found error you’re safe! If you see a long list of files, well you probably guessed that these need to be hidden. Having these open lets anybody see your core files that are located within that directory. To prevent this we can create our own .htaccess file for the wp-includes folder. Within this htaccess file a single line of code will tell the server not to index any file in that folder. To do this simply put the below at the top of your htaccess file in the root.

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Options All -Indexes

While we are working with htaccess files, we might as well protect them and the wp-config.php file in the root. In all of the htaccess files that are within your website put in this code:

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# protect the htaccess file
<files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

Within the root htaccess file you’ll need to put the following code to protect the wp-config.php file:

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

Lets brake the code down so that we understand it. Firstly the hashtag is a comment line, so anything can be put in this line and will not effect our htaccess file. The second line targets a selected file, in the latter case its the wp-config.php file. Next we tell the htacces what order we are setting our privileges in, firstly we are defining what IP addresses to allow, then what IP addresses to deny. We don’t need to allow anybody access to these files, so we can simply put ‘deny from all’ on the penultimate line. The last line is to close the code targeting the specified file.

Next up, we need to log into our wp-admin section with an administrator account. This is so we can delete the ‘admin’ account if there is one. One of the biggest security risk within WordPress is site that only have admin accounts. These admin accounts are usually set up by default when WordPress is installed, knowing that a site will usually have an admin account gives a hacker a big head start, knowing they don’t have to figure out the username. (If you don’t have an ‘admin’ account you can skip this bit.) To do this, firstly create a NEW user in user control panel, Go for something original that would be hard to guess and create a secure password. You can use the built in WordPress strength meter for this, or one I found http://howsecureismypassword.net/ which will tell you how long it would take a desktop PC to figure your password out. Don’t forget to set the user role to ‘administrator’.
Once done, log out and back in with your new administrator account and access your user accounts once more. You want to delete ‘admin’, you’ll be asked by WordPress what you want to do with all content published under the admin user name. You can either delete this (not sure why you would though!) or Transfer it to another user. You want to transfer all content to the new administrator account you have created.

There are a few other amends you can do to your site, with a couple of plugins. Two of which I like to use are User Locker and WP Security Scan. The former will check how many times an account has tried to be accessed, if more than 5 it will lock/disable the account. This is useful against brute force attacks. WP Security Scan will let you know whats a potential security risk on your WordPress website, It checks and does numerous things like:

• Checks database name prefix
• Checks for admin user account
• Hides the current WordPress version
• Turns off WPDB errors
• Removes WP ID META tag from core files
• Checks for wp-admin htaccess files
• Checks latest version of WordPress

We discussed table prefixes and while the plug-in and many other WordPress users out there suggest you should change it, it could throw errors on current sites. WordPress also suggest that you should stick with the current _wp prefix tag. I argue that it should be changed as its quite a big risk, as all WP tables will be called the same it would be easy for a hacker to target a specific table within your WP site. WP Security Scan will do this for you as well, which takes seconds.

Keeping your WordPress website on the latest update will always help to prevent hacks and bugs appearing. Hole will always be filled on new releases, making WordPress ever stronger.

Hopefully this has been useful and will keep those hackers at bay!

Happy Coding!

To do this on page, simply use the below code example as a point of reference when building your forms:

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<form>
<input type="text" value="Default Value" name="name" onblur="if (this.value == '') {this.value = 'Default Value';}" onfocus="if (this.value == 'Default Value') {this.value = '';}" />
</form>

For each input field you need to define the value.  Then add an onblur condition (when a user clicks away from an input field and the cursor loses it’s focus on the element) and an onfocus condition (when a user clicks the cursor into the input box element).  The code above checks the current box value.

• If the value is equal to what you have defined it will change the value to ‘blank’.
• If the value is blank when the user clicks away it will put the ‘default value’ back into the input field.
• If the value is not equal to what you have defined (i.e. a user has entered text into the box) it will not change the field value on blur or focus.

Very simple, very handy and very cool!

Ask any marketing consultant and they will tell you that sex sells, in fact I can imagine the days when cavemen first invented fire they sold it as a way to make cave women warm enough to strip! But we are not cavemen any more so is it time we looked at more intelligent forms of marketing?

The main reason I ask this question is recently there have been more and more people in the SEO, computing and technology industry calling out the need for booth babes at conferences and asking how this reflects on women in the industry.

As an ex model and a SEO I have experienced being the ‘booth babe’ as well as the attendee, when I was a struggling university student I welcomed the fact I could make easy money by slapping some make up on and smiling at conferences but how has this impacted the industry as a whole.

Sexualising women in the SEO Industry

The SEO and Internet industry is predominantly male – or it is men who are more vocal and pro active in self publicity. You can say that because more men are in the industry that using booth babes or sexual images of women as marketing tools is attracting the correct demographic, but is this further alienating other women from entering the industry, and most alarmingly is it making these intelligent young men see all women in the industry as props rather than peers?

Jane Copland was the first female SEO brave enough to speak out about her experiences of women as entertainment at conferences where men seem to think that a woman attending is fair game. Since this post more and more women have spoken out about similar experiences and their concern about the way women are used and even the use of booth babes at CES last week has re ignited the controversy. As an ex model I also found a few extra doors opening based on looks, once I came into the SEO industry I was given more opportunities to go to conferences than my male peers, more client liaison and opportunities to get involved in sales. I knew at the time it was because they wanted a few girls that were attractive enough and wouldn’t scare off the punters and I got to go to the big conferences and see the speakers so what harm could it do?

The attitudes of men at these conferences were that I was there purely to be groped and gawped at they didn’t realise that I also knew as much, if not more than some of the men. It seems the over use of booth babes has given people some sort of booth babe blindness where they assume any woman in a more male oriented industry is part of the marketing and being paid to be nice to them.

Frat boy attitudes

Conferences and exhibits are for socialising and networking as much as they are for sharing products and knowledge, so a big part of most conferences is the drinks later on. I have no problem with people having a drink after the conference but this coupled with attitudes of women being the decoration means ‘frat boy’ and ‘stag’ mentality seems to go a bit too far. It comes to the point where women do not always feel comfortable or respected, the fact that one woman had to speak out first shows that women do feel they can’t talk about this. By not talking about it or pulling people up on it then people get away with it and it continues; and can very often spiral out of control. I’m all for a bit of fun but we need to remember we are professionals and what would our clients think of our behaviour?

Geeks will be geeks

One of the arguments for the use of women in the industry as marketing tools is that the men in SEO, computing, technology etc are geeks who are stereotypically ‘bad’ with women. With web design and marketing taking off with so many different routes are we right to label the men in the industry as geeks? I know plenty of men who are as confident and attractive as a sports person and guess what they can hold an intelligent conversation. Does this sound like a man who needs help with women? Of course there are plenty of geeks, some are shy some are confident but it is the geeks that are making money and pushing the economy forward which is the inspiration for terms such as geek chic.

Labeling men as geeks is actually as bad a stereotype as assuming women are for entertainment so there is no excuse for using one to justify the other.

Equal Rights

This is not the place to get into arguments about pay or equality in other areas but women and men have an equal right to be good at their job, there are a lot of good female SEO’s as there are a lot of good male SEO’s. It is the individuals skills that make them good at their job, and as long as there is no weight lifting in the internet and technology industries there is no reason why a man would be better than a woman or vice versa.

Can Marketing evolve and should it?

Marketing can encompass many mediums and the only trick that seems to be evident across all platforms and demographics seems to be sex. It appeals to our more basic nature and maybe for the Jeremy Kyle generation it is a quick win that gets results.

However, we are talking about the technology and internet marketing industry I like to think that this area is very fast moving where your knowledge and techniques can be out of date in 6 months. Most people in these industries have degrees or the intelligence to teach themselves, they are open minded to change yet we treat them like neanderthals. Surely the marketing teams targeting our industry at events or conferences can come up with something more appealing than a booth babe?

SEO needs YOU!

I know at SEO Creative we are crying out for good individuals to enter the industry so in my opinion if women don’t feel comfortable in this area we will potentially lose out on the next Lisa Myers, Judith Lewis, Gabriella Sannino and many many more. And also lets have a bit of respect for our men in SEO, most of them are intelligent, witty and don’t need marketers to pay women to be nice to them.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed the point? Do you agree? Am I just glossing over the issues? Let us know in the comments…

Website design is a process that changes dramatically from designer to designer but the best designs are born from an old fashioned pen and paper starting point.

I started the design process as a graphic designer, this was taught to me very conceptually and a pen and paper was the first point of call. You may criticise this as obviously I would use paper to start as a majority of the time the end product was print, but the first stages of a design and development in web design are much faster when you play around on paper first.

Web designers have come from a number of different back grounds, whether you went to university to study web design, computing, development, multimedia design or maybe you were self taught or learned on the job? If you are a good web designer the way you got to that place doesn’t matter, it is how you will turn yourself into a great web designer and what approach you use. Our top tip to create amazing designs is to go back to old school design methods such as a pen and paper.

Make design mistakes faster

Using a pen (or pencil) and paper to sketch out initial wire frames, concepts and designs means you can look at what works and what doesn’t work much faster. You can brainstorm ideas using keywords that will be integrated into the content at a later time to make sure the design fits the content, this style of designing means you can create a really unique and bespoke website that reflects the brand, products and will convert.

Playing around with designs at this stage and brainstorming is a lot faster on paper than it is in photoshop, although you won’t get the finished design from a sketch you can save a lot of time with the creative idea behind the website concept by working it out before you have turned on your computer.

Designers should still know website development

I came out of university knowing a little Flash and HTML but nothing of CSS or any other programming language so my first website designs were very complex to develop and not user friendly. Simple things like font choice meant my approved design would cause headaches for the developers and the end product wouldn’t work well on a website, although could have created a lovely printed brochure.

I cringe when looking at my first designs for websites and can spot a website designed by a print designer a mile off, so although I think going back to the old fashioned ways of designing are a great start make sure you have a good understanding of the way websites work before starting your design, even learn a bit of coding.

There has already been a lot of interest in these top level domains (TLD) by pepsi, who are allegedly looking at buying .pepsi so they can run their drink.pepsi campaign. Along with others Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is said the town hall has the intention of buying .london. Cities such as New York, Paris, Sydney, Berlin and Rome are also looking at purchasing the according TLD.

All applicants have until the 12th April 2012 to sign up before undergoing an 8 month evaluation process, the first new TLD’s expect to be seen in 2013. The evaluation process is claimed to consist of a grueling 50 questions from Icann, which has been used to deter fraudulent buyers purchasing large organisation domains, such as ‘.cocacola’. Over 40 of the worlds largest organisations, such as The coca-cola company, have already expressed their concerns about the TLD. Concerns include cost of internet expansions, possibility of confusing customers and increasing the risk of internet fraud.

Having specific domain suffix’s we here at SEO Creative could come up with some great addresses for Web Design and SEO Manchester, such as seo.creative, webdesign.seocreative and seo.manchester.

Can anybody else come up with some good ones?

Social Media has been constructive in giving the masses a voice, when once big companies looked to advertise and inform the masses now every public move is open to discussion. In some ways this is excellent for the public and for companies but it has also born an attitude of negativity and hate.

At SEO Creative we work in the online industry which allows us access to companies and we are able to see both sides of the situation a lot of the time, but even without having this insight it is quite clear that social media is being used to spread negativity and in some cases bullying. Social media incorporates platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and other consumer populated sites such as flickr, it also includes profile driven sites like dating sites and forums and the biggest one many forget is blogging and commenting.

The dark side of social media

Social Media Haters

Social media gives people a voice, this is often very good but in some situations it can get out of control and spread ideas that are not fully researched or understood adding confusion. A good example of this was last years riots when Twitter and the blackberry network were used to coordinate riots in the UK’s major cities. Other examples are Facebook groups set up against individuals or companies, last November many people used Facebook to spread the message that the ‘Body Shop’ were not allowing staff to wear poppies, this message was originally spread via a hate filled profile update supporting British troops and criticising the Body shop. This led to a Facebook group being set up against the company and in reality the company had not banned staff from wearing poppies but were still faced with abuse from the public.

We have also seen a rise in nasty comments on peoples blogs, some are pointless and rude, not spam but just very angry people wanting to vent and blogging leaves you open to this.

Social Media Bullies

User generated content is becoming more and more popular but sharing our opinions and having an online presence can make us vulnerable. Facebook is often used to bully or publicly humiliate people; this may not always be intentional and seen as a laugh, but this is cyber bullying and is often more damaging to the recipient than bullying in the workplace or school yard. Forums have an equally bad reputation online especially certain Mums forums where a number of participants gang up on an individual poster. They may not see it that way but if you look through the comment threads you can see some very aggressive language that is there in writing for the poster to read and re-read.

The good side of social media

Improved customer service and feedback

Although social media leaves companies open to criticism, they also allow companies and consumers direct communication. This means bad service can be improved upon much quicker and feedback actually gets seen by the decision makers. Having public comments means brands have to address issues as part of their reputation management. Too many comments online with a bad sentiment can severely effect sales and revenue so addressing these issues should be a priority. Social Media it is not some customer service tele sales person dealing with complaints and putting them in a folder to be addressed eventually, but the bad feedback gets seen by the people who can make changes. This has led to more openness from brands, better communication and more steps to improve products and services.

Lively Debates and discussions

Social media allows people all over the world to share opinions, information and research. This spread of knowledge is beneficial to people who are using this in a good way and also see that not all of the story is necessarily being told (especially in 140 characters). Lively discussions are good, you can constructively criticise and learn from other people, who in turn will learn from you and your experiences. We are not confined to our immediate surroundings when discussing politics or human nature – or just Eastenders or Coronation Street! By getting other peoples opinions it broadens our own knowledge.

Let the good triumph

What we can do to make sure we are using social media for good

Social Media has brought us a lot of opportunities but also caused a lot of hurt and controversy, and we often forget that writing something online usually means it is in the public domain forever (or a very long time). Be mindful of what you write and how it can be construed. We have all written something on a profile page in a moment of anger or happiness that perhaps shouldn’t have been shared with everyone. Here are my tips for making the social media world a nicer place:

• Be constructive -Debates are good but if you have something negative to say try to be constructive
• If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all – this applies to people who are being nasty with no reason, anger spreads quickly so keep your nasty comments to yourself. If you really need to vent try to do it in a constructive way; if you wrote something online think of how it would look to a jury in court, if you think they would not look favorably on you then should you be writing it?
• Be open minded – You may be certain you are right but there is always two sides to a story, so listen to other opinions and be open minded. You may still keep your original view but learn a new perspective on it.
• Remember written word has no tone – If you are being sarcastic or joking then you have to make this clear. Without tone words can be taken literally and even well meaning comments can be taken the wrong way. You could accidentally be upsetting people or open yourself up for abuse. Re-read your comments and if necessary add emotions or amend to make sure your intention is clear.
• Agree to disagree – Be respectful of other peoples opinions, ideas and beliefs if you really don’t agree don’t get into a nasty argument but leave the conversation before it gets out of hand and upsetting, especially on subjects such as religion or politics.
• Remember Social Media is not always a reliable source – If someone tells you something on the internet it doesn’t always mean it is true or the full story. You could not cite Twitter as an accurate reference in a dissertation so check facts before making any decisions off the information.

We have always known that SEO Manchester has the best and brightest talent in the UK but after our very own Sadie Sherran was nominated internationally as one of the top SEO women in the industry it was clear Manchester really hosts the best SEO consultants.

We posted a few months ago that our head of SEO, Sadie Sherran had been nominated as one of the top 2012 SEO women in the an international poll of 30 shortlisted. As we celebrated the new year we also celebrated the results of that poll as Sadie came top 5, number 4 in the international poll.

SEO in Manchester has some excellent SEO consultants working on projects for websites all over the UK and internationally and with a such good digital and SEO agencies as well as University support we expect more talent to move ‘oop north’ to Manchester.

It is due to the training, creativity and community in Manchester that has meant agencies keep raising the bar with their work and their staff. This growth in the industry has seen more and more Manchester SEO consultants become recognised in UK awards and awards all over the world. It is no longer an industry dominated by Silicon Valley or in the UK, London. Manchester SEO’s are here to stay and they are getting top results across the board.

To view the results of the top 2012 SEO women, pop over to Level 343′s article and see the bios of other great women in the Industry.

When working on a SEO (search Engine Optimisation) project it is important to have good communication with the client, especially on websites that are being updated regularly.

Many clients are keen to get SEO working quicker and there are ways that clients can help the SEO’s do their job. Recently many clients have come to us with a limited budget, this is a combination of them being new businesses needing to find budgets, online companies needed SEO to make the money in the first place and the economy being unstable. In these cases it is important for clients to get a ROI (return on investment) quickly and may not be able to afford all of the services available. In these cases there are things the client can do to help compliment the work your SEO is doing.

SEO Content

SEO Content is important in an SEO campaign, but content that is appealing to the target demographic is also important for conversions. When writing SEO content it is important for the client to give clear instructions on their industry so we can get it right quicker, in some niche industries the client may be better placed to write the content and we will optimise the content afterwards until we have reached a compromise. The longer it takes to get content approved the longer it is till the pages will be primed and give us a good platform for the rest of the SEO work.

SEO updates to the blog

We often recommend a blog as regular updates are great for keeping content fresh and provide more pages for visitors to land on. If you have a limited budget then clients taking on the blogging is a good option. We offer guidance and support on blogging and often instal plug ins to make SEO friendly blogs as easy as possible. If the client can take on a lot of blogging on the site then this can help the SEO campaign a lot as it keeps the site fresh and gives us time to work on areas the client is not qualified to do, such as natural link building, analysis and coding.

Let your SEO know when you make changes to the site

We encourage clients to keep the site fresh by adding content but if you are changing the SEO content you need to let your SEO consultant know as this may have a detrimental effect on your SEO. Any big changes like removing products from an ecommerce website need to be checked with your SEO agency as if you just delete the page then you will get a 404 error. There are better ways of removing pages but you may need your SEO consultants help with this. Any changes must be discussed with your SEO agency.

Don’t copy any content

This rule goes to any clients who have a certain level of access, if you are updating your blog and just copy and pasting other people blogs you will not be doing your site any favours. Also some clients feel that a second site may give you a double chance of exposure in the search engines and will hire a web design company to make a second site, as the SEO content is working on the first site they then copy this onto the second site without letting their SEO consultant know. Don’t do this, it will be a waste of money for the second site and can affect the rankings on the first site.

Give your SEO a chance to get things done

When you pay for a SEO campaign you expect to see results quickly, it is understandable when investing you can feel frustrated but SEO is a slow process, sometimes you can get lucky and a site can rank within days but there are lots of things that influence this the majority of sites take 3 to 6 months to get sought after positions and even then other factors such as competition need to be taken into consideration. Give your SEO a chance to do their job, don’t complain after a week that you haven’t got first page positions yet, a good SEO will be explaining all the processes and any complications. You may be tempted to start playing around with the site if you don’t think it is working, but by doing this you may be delaying the process further.

At the end of the day good communication with your SEO should eliminate any of these issues and you can work together to get great results, so if you have any worries at all just get on the phone and have a chat with your SEO agency.

Many of our clients come to us with websites that they want optimised for search engines, SEO is an ongoing internet marketing campaign but before you start a campaign the pages need to be accessible to search engine robots. It is much easier if you can incorporate SEO to the website design.

We always design and build our websites to be SEO friendly so even when we are not doing a SEO campaign straight away, the site is easily indexed and found by search engines.

Dynamic sites that are easy to update, fast to load and use SEO best practices will sometimes mean that in niche industries you do not need a lot of ongoing SEO work. In more competitive industries it is essential to have a SEO friendly web design. If your site is not easy to crawl then no matter how good the content and how many back links you will struggle to do well in competitive industries, A common example of this is Flash websites, we love Flash at SEO Creative but it has its purposes and for website it is almost invisible to search engines.

If you are getting a new website design or a design re fresh in the next few months then make sure that it is both user friendly so users will want to use it and buy from you, and search engines like it so users will find you. Combining usability and SEO is not difficult as many of the principles are the same and if you use a website designer that designs with SEO in mind then it could save you a lot of money on a SEO campaign and make you money through the site.

At the beginning of the year it is a great time to look at your social media calendar and work out your marketing strategy for the upcoming year.

Your Social Media calendar can be virtual or ,or my favourite, an actual calendar, this way you can schedule in all the important events in your industry that your social media and SEO campaign should be focussing around. SEO takes a bit of time to take effect so planning in advance means you can start working on ranking for particular things early, beating your competitors.

For example for SEO creative we like to attend SEO Manchester events therefore can write up blogs, tweets and get involved in other social media posts around these events. We can plan these events into our social media calender at the beginning of the year and know what is coming up.

We can also look at seasonal trends in our business, such as, in January and April we often find a lot of people set aside budget for new website design, this is often because new budgets have been set or they are using up end of year budget. From having this understanding of our own business we know to be focussing our social media around website design at this time.

By setting out your social media calendar with trends and events it makes planning your social media strategy a lot easier and also free up time for and topical events.