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Why Are You Letting Someone Destroy Your Web Presence?

Why would you ever let someone or some business destroy your web presence? You think that you never would right, but you may be doing so without really thinking that your are.

In one recent case one of our client’s web host had not properly secured their server. This could happen to you too. Just because your host has a high profile name does not mean that they are “taking care” of business. A web host may host 50 or more clients on one server. If they do not have strong intrusion and firewall systems in place, if one site gets hacked all sites on the shared server may be hacked.

If your website is hacked, has malware installed on it, or is being used as a zombie spam agent, you need to ask some very pointed questions to your web host. I do not advocate moving right away to a new web host unless proper security measures are not part of your existing web host’s protocol, but you definitely need to ask some “in your face” questions and get “real” answers.

I have personally found that if you are paying $10 or less a month for hosting, that typically you are not properly covered. Intrusion detection, system redundancies, and firewalls cost money, so does a security minded IT staff. You will typically not receive this type of service from many budget hosts.  Now, not all, GoDaddy has a pretty good package and they offer budget hosting, but I have run into some that are just “hack” magnets.

Once your web host and website have been compromised you can lose your organic placement, be blocked by browsers, and labeled as a site that “when visited can damage your computer” in the organic search results. For some clients, that do not check their website daily, they can be compromised for weeks before they find out that the reason they have no phone calls is that their website has been “marked as unsafe” on Google.com.

There is too much to risk when it comes to destroying consumer confidence in your business when your website is spewing out malware when links are clicked in your site. I prefer to protect the online reputation I have by making sure that I have the best web host possible, that the most recent technology is used in their infrastructure, and that they are located in the United States as am I. It is important to understand that when you shop for a web host there is much more to consider than the price per month.

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New Ghost Blogging Clients to Check Out

We’ve been busy selling and setting up new blogs. We would like to share a few of our newest ghost blogging customers with you so you can check out the writing.

Perfectory Web Design
This Canadian web design firm makes the most beautiful website templates I have ever seen and the prices are good too. We are blogging for her site on topics of interest to small business owners or web designers who would be buying her templates. Each Friday we feature one item from her assortment and on Monday and Wednesday provide great business and marketing tips. Visit the blog now.

Homes Buy Day
We’ve blogged for literally years for this client who then took a several month break while he was building a new WordPress based website and now we’re back blogging. His blog is chock full of interesting articles on Maryland real estate and showcases some of his listings and foreclosed properties. The owner John Day periodically blogs on the site as well and has a wonderful authoritative voice for his industry. Check out this great blog now.

Staff Advantage
This new blog for a virtual assistant offers wonderful marketing and business productivity tips. Although we only blog two times a month for this client, the content is interesting. Andrea Dwyer the owner is also available to help with a wide variety of virtual assistant services. Check out this blog now.

We’ve got a few other blogs getting ready to start this week and the first part of May so we’ll make sure to point those new ones out to you as well. To find out more about our ghost blogging or blog writing services, I invite you to visit our blog writing services page. There you’ll find pricing, samples, and links to other blogs that we are writing for as well.

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Network Solutions Takes a Black Eye With Compromised Hosting

Last week one of our client’s who is hosted at Network Solutions had a huge issue with their website. IE had splashed a huge red warning on the page when his URL was entered. The warning stated that the site had been compromised and included automatic downloading malware. Additionally the Kapersky antivirus program blocked all access to the website.

What I found out was, that one, the FTP access to the website had been changed without notice by Network Solutions earlier in the week, the home page of the client’s website and the index.php page of the blog directory (not the blog itself) had a trojan script installed at the bottom. Clearly if a link had been clicked on the page anywhere a trojan would have been downloaded to the unsuspecting visitors computer.

When I spoke with Network Solutions staff about the problem they said that not only our account had been compromised but others as well. For this particular client, this is the third time his site or blog has been hacked in the last year. He is the only  client we have hosted at Network Solutions and the only one of two that I know of in our list of clients this past year who have had a serious problem with their web host.

When should you consider moving your website? Well I say being hacked three times is reason to move! I can understand a system being compromised once and maybe even twice but the third time warrants a conversation about why new technology and security policies were not put in place after the last big attack.

You can read more about this most recent incident in this article.

What I find particularly interesting is that Network Solutions messaged me on Twitter when I tweeted about the problem and said no, they weren’t hiding, and pointed to a note posted on their website. The note however did not say that their servers had been compromised and trojans installed on websites they host, but rather an innocuous notification that some people may be having trouble FTPing their website.

Although more transparency in this case would definitely lead to a flood of client’s leaving Network Solutions for other web hosts, clearly better customer handling of the situation should have been done. It may behoove Network Solutions to state the new security policies and hardware they are putting in place to offset the amount of bad press this last incident is creating, my own blog post included.

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Adobe Packages InContext Editing With Business Catalyst

I have reviewed and tested Adobe InContext Editing and felt it was a good product for clients that wanted to update website content themselves. Adobe has recently announced that it is closing the free standing version of Adobe InContext Editing and will now package it as part of the Adobe Business Catalyst solution.

Business Catalyst is much more than a website editing application it is an advanced set up business tools under one umbrella much like HubSpot. Business Catalyst’s strength will be however its significantly lower price when compared to HubSpot.

I have been testing the interface intensively and find the WSIWYG interface annoying to use for a power user such as myself who typically works in code view. To please people such as myself, Business Catalyst does allow full FTP access and can work on sites set up with Dreamweaver templates.

What I find intriguing about Business Catalyst is its arsenal of web widgets and easy to implement advanced features such as recording all form contact submissions into an integrated customer database for use by the sales team and an included e-newsletter application. The system can even set up email drip campaigns. Additionally you can do e-commerce on Business Catalyst as well with a very nice feature of being able to load all your products from an Excel spreadsheet versus having to enter each one manually.

The application allows the business owner to review on on dashboard all activity on their online business and allows sorting of information with an integrated analytics program as well. From my initial review, it looks like a very powerful system with a very low cost. This is a hosted application like HubSpot but instead of charging a monthly fee of $500 for a small site the fees range from $39 to $79 per month and only $16 per month if you only want to use the InContext Editing portion. To me the application has great potential.

One note of warning, the system IS complicated. I have personally decided that the premade templates are not a good fit for my needs, but will be testing my own template next in the application. Although this tool is not a good fit for everyone, it certainly points the way to the future of packaged business solutions. As the team says at Adobe, this is no longer just a website, it is an online business!