Google has changed its algorithms – over 200 times recently, in an effort to return the most relevant results to search queries. Link farms are in their cross-hairs now. In the headlines, J.C. Penny and Forbes.com were both penalized, the former for using paid links to advertise their website and the latter for selling links.

What worked well in the past – will not necessarily work well going forward, especially if you used the following methods to increase the ranking of your website:

• Keyword stuffing
• Fully automated, unrelated and centralized link farms
• Cloaking
• Pages loaded with irrelevant content
• Hidden text
• Made for AdSense sites that consist entirely of scraped content
• Hidden links
• False redirects
• Link wheels

Who wins with this most recently tweak – of Google’s algorithms?

• First, Google wins because HUGE advertising revenues are at stake, and this makes them more relevant and marketable.
• Searchers win because they’ll receive more relevant results to their search queries.
• Ethical website owners win because they’ll receive a more targeted audience open to the products and services they offer.

What should you focus on going forward? On page and off page SEO optimization remain as primary ingredients in any marketing strategy. Optimize your existing web pages, title tags, H1 tags, meta descriptions, keywords and content. Follow that with steady growth of organic (high quality) inbound links from relevant sites.

Google’s take on link farms

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

• Links intended to manipulate PageRank
• Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
• Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page’s visitors?

It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest.

I watch and participate in a ton of webinars, but the latest one I tuned into talked about automating stuff like distributing your YouTube videos to different video sites, and the same with PodCasts and on and on. The one site they discussed that caught my attention was Fiverr.com, “The world’s largest marketplace for small services, starting at $5.”

Then this morning, one of the threads I read posted a number of other sites similar to fiverr, which I’ve listed below.

Each of these were highly recommended, but to be honest, I haven’t used any of them quite yet. I am leaning toward contacting Fiverr first, then if that works, possibly trying some of the others. Which of these would YOU recommend?

Exchange4Me is one of a number of social media Exchange systems, and our first to review on WDTalk. Basically, the site is designed to help you increase your site traffic and popularity “FAST and FREE” through the use of coins that are can be used to get traffic for your links.

What can you do with these coins? According to Exchange4Me:

You can use the coins in your balance to place a value on your site or video. For example, you have a fans page you want gain more fans, so you set your page to give 5 Coins for any person who become fan, everytime one of our users become your fan, 5 Coins will be deducted from your account. In other words, if you have 5000 coins in your account and you set to give 5 coins for each view, that means you will get 1000 fans automatically.

You will earn coins for every Like, Follow, View, +1 or visit from you, to our users. Everytime you LIKE a page, watch a youtube video, press +1 on someone’s google plus or visiting a fellow visitor’s site you gain Coins.

Out of curiosity, I checked Exchange4Me’s Alexa ranking, which currently stands at 42,603 globally – impressive! Any time your Alexa rating ranks in the top 100,000 sites, you’re doing something right.

With so much information out there - it’s hard to narrow down any search query to the relevant few you’re truly interested in. I recently found a great list of blogs that are both interesting and successful. I had already been reading some of them, but this is a diverse group with a ton of in depth observations. See my PS: on marketing blogs.

PS: If you’re interested in top performing marketing blogs - see the Power 150 at AdAge Digital. They currently list 1121 marketing blogs (and growing) ranked by a number of indicators including:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• StumbleUpon
• Alexa Points
• Yahoo Inlinks
• Todd Points

Click on the link and it’ll show their last posts.

Just today, I was asked for a recommendation in coming up with a name for a new forum - in a custom niche. I know this sounds easy, but it seems that every conceivable combination of English words has been taken, and is currently either active or parked. The registrar always suggests other combinations, but I’ve yet to find one in my queries that fits what I’m  searching for.

Maybe this is just one of my many pet peeves - but an astonishing number of domains are parked, especially with highly competitive keywords. Cracking that egg requires a sledge hammer the size of my SUV. I did find one this morning I really liked, but the sale price was over $6000.00. My budget is around $12

There are services where you can sell and purchase domain names - like SEDO, but then I’d miss the challenge and frustration, and sometimes the thrill of finding a name that is actually available.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world - which is owned by none other than the largest search engine, Google.  Volumes have been written about video optimization, but your core objective should be about the quality of each visitor experience.

I ran across this bit of code on - Web Hosting Talk this morning (OP did not list the source), where the script sets up a YouTube video to autostart only one time, then if the visitor comes back on that page, the video will not start again.

<script language=”Javascript”>
function played(){
var ca = document.cookie.split(‘;’);
for(var i=0; i<ca.length; i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0)==’ ‘) c = c.substring(1,c.length);
if (c.indexOf(“played=”) == 0) return 1;
}
var date = new Date();
var days = 7;
date.setTime(date.getTime()+(days*24*60*60*1000));
document.cookie = “played=1″+”; expires=”+date.toGMTString()+”; path=/”;
return 0;
}
if(played()==0){
document.write(“<embed src=\”http://www.youtube.com/v/W5E2Q6PW&autoplay=1\” type=\”application/x-shockwave-flash\” wmode=\”transparent\” width=\”740\” height=\”400\”></embed>”);
}
else{
document.write(“<embed src=\”http://www.youtube.com/v/W5E2Q6PW\” type=\”application/x-shockwave-flash\” wmode=\”transparent\” width=\”740\” height=\”400\”></embed>”);
}
</script>

Replace the YouTube embed with a valid URL.

Please let me know if this works for you (Or Not)

Revised January 18 2012

By default, WordPress blogs use a rel=”nofollow” attribute - so when you read of Do Follow Blogs, these are blogs that have used a plugin that removes the nofollow attribute. Comments then that contain links back to the poster count as backlinks for their sites.

To the Search Engines – these links then are simply links. It’s up to the search engines rather to follow that link and pass value to the poster’s site. There is no “do follow” attribute to instruct a search engine that these links must be followed or assigned value. Why DoFollow versus NoFollow? The NoFollow attribute was introduced in 2005 to discourage comment spam.

Quality Backlinks - To a large segment of SEO experts, a quality backlink is a one way incoming link from a relevant (respected) site with higher PR. It’s a link you earn via hosting a great site that delivers useful information (the stuff that people want to link to).  These are also known as natural (real) links. The theory is that more natural links help boost your site’s popularity and Page Rank.

A Word of Caution - Blog spam is rampant, especially for Do Follow blogs. There are some “do follow” plugins that allow you to set how many comments a visitor needs to leave (with the same domain URL and/or email address) before their comment link will follow. The DoFollow Plugin for WordPress options:

Timeout

Comments

Pingbacks, trackbacks and other special comment types

My Recommendation

• Use a Do Follow plugin for your WordPress blog if you enable comments
• Do not add the “NoFollow” attribute to inbound links.
• Only add the ‘NoFollow” attribute to outbound links in widgets like Subscribe or Bookmark Me.

Center Your Pages – Pages that are left or right aligned don’t work well with larger PC monitors, and often look out of place due to the large amount of space left to one side.

Use Ample White Space – Resist loading up your pages with everything imaginable. Focus is important. Use white space to guide visitors as they navigate your site. Clutter simply invites confusion.

Consistency – This reverts back to short term versus long term memory retention and branding principles. Try to use the same terminology in your prompts and menus.

KISS – We’ve all see the term. Keeping it simple works. Highlight the key products or services you offer on your home page, then provide more in-depth information about them deeper in your site. Don’t try to squeeze everything onto one page that scrolls forever.

Embrace all five senses – reach out to your visitors in a way that they’ll best understand what you have to offer. Use a mix of graphics and short blocks of text to capture their attention.

Employ analytics – to determine how visitors reach your site, how long they stay & if they return. If your site has a high bounce rate, perhaps the search query doesn’t match well with your content, or the content may need to be revamped.

Enhance Credibility and Trust – Add an About Us page. In a era where we’re being warned to avoid certain websites, as they may infect your computer with all sorts of malware, it’s important to convey credibility at first glance. Let’s face it – the design of your site directly relates to the perception of your professionalism.

Color and Layout – speaks volumes about your business. Color themes are perceived differently in global markets, so it’s vitally important to understand your target audience. What works for car dealerships doesn’t necessarily work for furniture retailers. Research your competition – emulate success.

Online Store? Increase your conversions with options, discount codes and freebies. I know if I’m comparing products and one vendor offers an immediate rebate, I’ll opt for that every day over the option to mail in some coupon and wait for weeks to get a check back.

Xen™ – is a virtual machine environment that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with outstanding levels of performance and resource isolation. Xen is Open Source software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Servers with – quad core processors and GB’s of RAM are ideally suited to employ virtualization to present the illusion of many smaller virtual machines, each running a separate operating system.

Virtual machines – on one dedicated server are isolated from one another, allowing concurrent execution of multiple operating systems – without allowing the execution of one to adversely affect the performance of another partition.

XEN Hypervisor – is a layer of software running directly on the server’s hardware, replacing the operating system, which allows that server’s hardware to run multiple guest operating systems concurrently. It becomes the interface for all hardware requests such as CPU, I/O, and disk for the guest operating systems.

Server virtualization benefits

• dynamic fault tolerance against software failures (through rapid bootstrapping or rebooting)
• hardware fault tolerance (through migration of a virtual machine to different hardware)
• the ability to securely separate virtual operating systems
• the ability to support legacy software as well as new OS instances on the same computer

I remember when I first learned how to use print screen - to capture screen images. I thought to myself, “Wow, imagine the possibilities!” Technology has advanced so rapidly, it’s impossible for one person to keep pace with new developments and software, even with something as seemingly simple as screen capture programs.

Doing a Google search for “screen capture programs” just now returned over  – 37 million results. Some of the more highly recommended programs are:

SnagIt 10 by TechSmith® (free trial/$39.95)

Snagit gives you the tools you need to create engaging images for presentations, feedback, tutorials, and training documents.

The only con I saw was that it could only save video files in .AVI format.

FullShot 2012 by InBit. (free trial/$49.99+)

FullShot is a professional screen capture (print screen) application designed for any Windows user who needs an effortless, effective way to take screenshots of Windows screens. It’s perfect for capturing on-screen images you want to include in manuals, training handouts,presentations, marketing materials, and web pages.

Cons - This product doesn’t seem to offer the ability to capture video clips.

Jing and Jing Pro - by TechSmith® (free versus $14.95/year)

Jing Free - SWF Video | 5-Minutes of Screen Recording | Mark-Up Tools for Images | Screencast.com Free Account

What do I use? – the FREE version of Jing because it fits what I do for now. If you need to produce MPEG-4 videos, I highly recommend Jing Pro as it offers the best combination of features vs price.

Every successful business has its niche -  (a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fit). Marketing materials are carefully written to emphasize a business’s strengths and their competitor’s weaknesses. A great example that comes to mind was one brand of typesetter which was capable of producing point sizes in tenths of an inch (unique to that brand).

Another was capable of zooming horizontally independent of vertical - in one percent increments (great for Rx labels). When the time came to upgrade or renew leases, thousands of existing documents had been produced using their unique parameters. To maintain uniformity, all new bids had to confirm to those same standards – effectively locking that client into their brand. In document imaging, one brand of copier can produce banner advertisements. Another can direct print PDF documents without opening them first. My point? There is a niche unique to your industry. Have you identified your niche, and are you marketing what makes your products and services unique?

The niche doesn’t have to be technical in nature
A niche could be how fast you deliver, the quality of your work, the level of support you provide, your pre-sales advertising venues, and any number of other things – anything that sets you apart from your competition. In web hosting, most niches relate to more bang for the buck – in bandwidth, RAM, disk space, add-ons and so forth.

The Web Hosting Industry
The web hosting industry is fiercely competitive, just as in many other industries. Web hosting continues to be a mystery to most new entrepreneurs though, even as prospects are rapidly becoming more computer and Internet savvy.  My own grandchildren are extremely Internet savvy, but couldn’t tell you the difference between Linux and Windows, or ASP and PHP.  Most prospects understand the need for an online presence, but are lost when it comes to how to select a decent provider.

Branding
In terms of mass appeal, branding is paramount. Here again, an integral piece of branding is your niche.  I can think of a few web hosting providers who own their niche, not financially, but in the mindset of prospects, just as Kleenex and Xerox own their niche.  If I were to ask someone if they’ve heard of your company, would they be like, “Yeah, they’re highly recommended,” or “Never heard of them.”  Getting from Point ‘Unknown” to Point “Highly Recommended” requires more than competing with similar packages, which I see a lot of online. When prospects compare your website against all the other sites they’ve just visited, is there anything that definitively sets you apart?

Five nines or 99.999% relates to - the up time availability of data centers. Prospective clients look for uninterruptable uptime as a prerequisite to constitute reliability of a data center, but what is acceptable to one may be inadequate to another. Accordingly, this expectation of uptime relates to a demand for computer reliability. Data center infrastuctures include a variety of critical physical layer environmental sub-systems that must integrate cohesively. Among those are power and cooling. If a system is deemed ‘fault tolerant,” this means it can sustain a worst case, unplanned event and NOT disrupt the end user.

The Four Tiers of Data Centers

Tier 1

It has non-redundant capacity components and single non-redundant path distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 2

A tier 2 data center has redundant capacity components and single non-redundant distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 3

A tier 3 data center has redundant capacity components and multiple distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 4

This is a fault tolerant data center with redundant capacity systems and multiple distribution paths simultaneously serving the site’s computer equipment.

A tier rating for an entire site is limited to the rating of the weakest subsystem that will impact their operations.

When you publish your website - there are things you can do to get found and accelerate inbound traffic. I’ve seen a lot of SEO practitioners recommend submitting your site to Google and so on, but they’ll find you (quicker than you imagine). If you’re online, there isn’t much that gets by Google.

The following services are largely analytical in nature - with each of them providing some valuation of your site. Beyond that, researching your site at these locations actually helps get your site recognized and indexed.

Robtex - Swiss Army Knife Internet Tool

Alexa – is the leading provider of free, global web metrics. Search Alexa to discover the most successful sites on the web by keyword, category, or country. Use their analytics for competitive analysis, benchmarking, market research or business development.

Quantcast - Quantcast Measurement provides free, directly measured traffic and audience composition reports. These reports are Media Ratings Council-accredited, ensuring that your traffic data is both accurate and reliable.

Web Worth - is a free and innovative tool to help find out a website value or worth calculation, estimations about a web site and SEO information about any web site the user submits – you could call it a Website Value Calculator

Cubestat - is a free tool for website value calculation, estimations and information.

Website Informer - is a special service for web masters that gathers detailed information on websites – general information, statistics, main competitors, similar sites, IPs etc.

PeekStats - estimates website value based on a wide range of publicly available statistics. They provide you with insight in all these numbers and the estimated results.

Markosweb.com - is a web service that collects and analyzes any data about domains and keywords they are optimized for.

Hostirian is named Best VPS Host by Best Free Web Space because of the quality of service and the best virtual private server (VPS) technology they use. In this Hostirian review we will take a look at some of the best web hosting services they have to offer as well as a little about the Hostirian company, in an effort to help webmasters figure out if this is the best web hosting service for his/her needs. Hostirian was started in 2001 and is part of the River City Internet Group. Hostirian manages over 5,000 servers in a 30,000 square foot datacenter, making it possible for them to offer top of the line VPS hosting options. In addition to top of the line technology, Hostirian focuses on providing the very best web hosting customer support.

At Hostirian,  customers will have the option to contact customer service through their toll free 800 number, integrated ticket system, and live chat options for both pre and post sales service. These are just a couple of the elements that Best Free Web Space feels makes Hostirian one of the best web hosting services around. In addition, Hostirian offers several web hosting options to meet the needs of the most customers. Choose from shared web hosting, cloud hosting, a virtual private server, dedicated server and more. Having so many options makes it possible for many different websites to perform very well on the Hostirian web hosting service.

VPS hosting plans start as low as $4.95 per month and include 256 MB dedicated memory, 10 GB disk space, 100 GB monthly bandwidth and a 2.4 GHz Xeon processor. In addition to the Hostirian VPS Starter Package they have four other VPS plans to choose from, each offering additional dedicated memory, disk space, monthly bandwidth, and Xeon processors. For a webmaster that has an established website that is having performance issues, because of the available resources on a shared web hosting plan, moving to a VPS plan could be the perfect answer. A virtual private server uses a partition to provide each VPS account with dedicated allotments of resources as well as the ability to choose the operating system, reboot the server, or take advantage of other administrative rights that one would usually only have with a dedicated server.

The fact that Hostirian has more than 10 years of experience in the web hosting industry is a good indication that they provide a reliable web hosting service that is stable and secure. Hostirian reviews from actual customers tell about the reliable uptime and exceptional customer service they have enjoyed with Hostirian.  Whether you are new to the web hosting business and just need a basic shared web hosting plan or if you have been around for a while and are looking for a more specialized service like a managed server, disaster recovery, cloud hosting and more; Hostirian offers affordable, professional services to meet all your web hosting needs. Signing up with Hostirian is easy and secure. Visit the Hostirian website to learn more about the best VPS hosting options. Watch for Hostirian promos like the current 20% off new VPS hosting plans, when you “like” Hostirian on Facebook.

For any other questions about the Hostirian service, contact them by phone, email or live chat. The Hostirian support is available all the time and they take pride in providing every customer with the tools and service needed to build and maintain a successful website. Take a few minutes to read the hosting articles and  the frequently asked questions to learn more about the Hostirian web hosting service.

What are 404 error pages anyway? From time to time, one of your links on WordPress may become broke. When this happens, WordPress looks for a 404.php web page, and presents that page to the visitor.

The good news is that you don’t have to settle for – the default 404 NOT FOUND page. Some themes make it easy to customize the 404.php file, but others do not. Regardless, leaving it at the default setting is counterproductive.  Why not add a message that helps your visitor or injects some humor to defuse the error?

To edit your Theme’s 404 error template file:

• Open your WordPress admin panel:
• Choose Appearance menu.
• Choose the Theme Editor page.
• Check to see if your theme includes a 404 Template in the list of files.
• Click the link for 404 Template along the right side of the page.
• Edit the message text to say what you want it to say.
• Save your changes.

While you are examining and editing your 404 template file – take a look at the structure of the default 404.php file. It basically features tags that display the header, sidebar, and footer, and also an area for your message:

In addition to adding a personalized message - similar to “something went wrong,” you should also include:

• A link to the site map – (if you have one) and the home page.
• A search box. If you have a site search, add it to your 404 page.

With shopping cart abandonment hovering - between 50-70%, understanding WHY could help you refine your checkout process and improve conversions.

Whereas getting from Point Query to - Point Buy (complicated checkout process) used to dominate shopping cart abandonment, today’s shoppers cite high shipping costs high on their list, followed by a desire to shop around. About 1/4 of prospects leave simply because the price is too high.

So, what makes your site unique - and sellable? How does it differ from sites your prospects just came from or are going to? If your strategy relies on lowering prices alone, you’re not necessarily missing the boat, but it’ s never venturing far from the dock.  If your product or service doesn’t require shipping and handling charges, offering a special coupon code helps.

Again, trust remains high - on everyone’s list. Do you have a return policy? Do you provide contact information on your site, like a brick and mortar mailing address and phone number? Do you reassure your shoppers by providing privacy and and trust language? Do you offer PayPal or Google Checkout – and why is that important? Some prospects aren’t comfortable entering their financial information on a site they just found that day, even if you’ve got the best deal.

I read an interesting approach to tackling shopping cart abandonment this morning – and that was to offer a discount in return for a customer review, outlining why they decided to purchase from you. Would that work? Maybe. I’d be thinking, “Did they write up a nice review just to get the discount, or was this really the best deal?” On the other hand, reviews do help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  and Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS), especially on Google Places.

Updated Dec 27 2011

Web design is about perception (by the visitor) - so user-centric designs lead to more successful & profitable websites. The key here is to approach your design from your visitor’s point of view. How do you see them interacting with your site?

Just as in personal encounters – first impressions are killer. Load up your home page with clutter and you’ll lose your visitor faster than …. well, faster than my dog can woof down a hot dog.

Ponder this – what do you do when you stumble across a site that has long blocks of unbroken text on the home page? Most visitors simply glance at new pages, then maybe scan some text. They’re searching for something, so if they find that SOMETHING or even something vaguely similar, more often than not, they’ll skip everything else on that page and click through.

What are your visitors thinking? Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Once they find something of interest and click through, if the new page doesn’t immediate match up to their expectations, what do they do? HIT THE BACK BUTTON !! Why? Surfers have become accustomed to instant gratification, and if not on your site, certainly on your competition’s website.

Once you’ve captured their attention – what factors motivate visitors to convert? Converting to me could be giving up their email address, going to livechat to speak to an operator, filling in a quote request or actually calling via telephone for more info. Of course, ordering online works well also. Here, I believe great content out-trumps visual design. As far back as I can remember (in sales), solutions and NOT products or services carry the day. If your solution eases some pain & is reasonable, the odds increase exponentially that visitors will buy.

I read an article a few days ago describing in-depth comparisons – of the major search engines ability to recognize and combat phishing.  To my surprise, IE ranked much higher than Google, but since I’m always on Google, I thought I should research some third party tools to help secure my online travels.

The following four anti-phishing tools are presented for your review:

• AVG LinkScanner - AVG LinkScanner is a free must have for computer only running a traditional anti-virus program to prevent you from visiting bogus or infected web sites.
• TrendProtect - TrendProtect is a FREE browser plug-in that helps you avoid Web pages with unwanted content and hidden threats. TrendProtect rates the current page and pages listed in Google, MSN, and Yahoo search results. You can use the rating to decide if you want to visit or avoid a given Web page. To rate Web pages, TrendProtect refers to an extensive database that covers the following information for billions of Web pages:  Content category, Phishing scam detection, Site reputation and Page reputation.
• Norton Safe Web Lite – Norton Safe Web Lite provides a safer search experience by warning you of dangerous Web sites right in your search results, so you can search, browse, and shop online without worry. Norton Safe Web Lite is FREE to anyone who wants protection from unsafe Web sites and disreputable online merchants. It’s our way of giving back to the online community.
• BitDefender Anti-Phishing Free Edition - Committed To Stopping Cyber-criminals In Their Tracks! Whether you’re a current Bitdefender customer or not, our goal is that everyone remains safeguarded from cyber-criminals’ tactics. That’s why we offer free virus removal tools and other free antivirus products, to ensure that every journey online is a safe one!

Just this morning, I read an article on a web hosting forum about Keyword Research Guidelines - and was so impressed I considered asking the OP (original poster) for permission to use it on this blog. However, after performing a few Google searches, these guidelines have been circulating around the Web (verbatim) since 2003, and in fact, returned over 18 thousand results. I have no clue who the original author is, but the guidelines remain valid, nonetheless.

Many businesses recognize that search engines can - bring volumes of highly targeted prospects to their website, typically at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

Unfortunately, these same companies often overlook - the most important part of their search engine marketing campaigns, which is keyphrase selection and evaluation.

Keyphrases (those phrases that potential customers are using to find products or services on search engines) are -  the building block of any search engine marketing strategy.

It is essential that they are chosen carefully, or else - the remainder of the campaign, no matter how effective the implementation, will likely be in vain. What follows is a three-step process that goes over the process of compiling, selecting, and evaluating the ongoing performance of keyphrases for search engines.

1. Compiling a keyphrase list:

Usually, companies are sure that they already know their ideal keyphrases. Often, they are wrong.

This is typically because it is very hard to separate oneself from a business and look at it from the perspective of a potential customer (rather than an insider). Compiling a keyphrase list should not be, despite common practice, a strictly internal process.

Rather, it is best to ask everyone outside of your company for their input, especially your customers. People are often very surprised at the keyphrase suggestions they get- and sometimes dismayed to realize that an average customer doesn’t speak the same language that they do.

Only after you have put together a list of likely phrases from external sources do you add your own. As a last step, try to add variations, plurals, and derivatives of the phrases on your list.

2. Evaluating keyphrases:

Once you have compiled a master keyphrase list, it is time to evaluate each phrase to hone your list down to those most likely to bring you the highest amount of quality traffic.

Although many individuals will base their assessment of key phrase value based only on popularity figures, there are really three vitally important aspects of each phrase to consider.

a) Popularity

By far the easiest of the three to judge is popularity, since it is not subjective. Software like WordTracker gives popularity figures of search phrases based upon actual search engine activity (it also gives additional keyphrase suggestions and variations).

Such tools allow you to assign a concrete popularity number to each phrase to use when comparing them. Obviously, the higher the number, the more traffic that can be expected (assuming you are able to obtain good search engine positions).

However, this number alone is not good enough reason to pursue any particular keyphrase, although key phrase analysis too often stops here.

b) Specificity

This is more abstract than the sheer popularity number, but equally important. For example, let’s assume that you were able to obtain great rankings for the keyphrase “insurance companies” (a daunting prospect). Let’s also assume that you only deal with auto insurance.

Although “insurance companies” might have a much higher popularity figure than “auto insurance companies”, the first keyphrase would also be comprised of people looking for life insurance, health insurance, and home insurance.

It is very likely that someone searching for a particular type of insurance will refine their search after seeing the disparate results returned from the phrase “insurance companies”.

In the second, longer keyphrase, you can be reasonably sure that a much higher percentage of visitors will be looking for what you offer- and the addition of the word “auto” will make it much easier to attain higher rankings, since the longer term will be less competitive.

c) Motivation of User

This factor, even more abstract than specificity, calls for an attempt to understand the motivation of a search engine user by simply analyzing his or her search phrase.

Assume, for example, that you were a real estate agent in Atlanta. Two of the keyphrases you are evaluating are “Atlanta real estate listings” and “Atlanta real estate agents”.

Both phrases have very similar popularity numbers. They are also each fairly specific, and your services are very relevant to each. So which phrase is better? If you look into the likely motivation of the user, you will probably conclude that the second is superior.

While both phrases target people looking for real estate in Atlanta, you can infer from the second phrase that the searcher has moved beyond the point where they are browsing local homes or checking out prices in their neighborhood- they are looking for an agent, which implies that they are ready to act. Often, subtle distinctions between terms can make a large difference on the quality of the traffic they attract.

3. Evaluating Keyphrase Performance:

Until recently, judging the performance of individual keyphrases was a dicey proposition. Although it is possible to tell from your log traffic analysis how many visitors are getting to your site from each keyphrase (valuable information, but unfortunately not enough to do much with), it was very hard to decipher which phrases were bringing you the most quality traffic.

Recently, however, some sophisticated but affordable tools have been developed that allow you to judge the performance of each individual keyphrase based upon visitor behavior.

This new software makes it possible to periodically analyze which keyphrases are bringing your site the most valuable visitors- those who buy your products, fill out your contact form, download your demo, etc.

This type of data, rather than the sheer number of visitors from each search phrase alone, is invaluable when you are refining your search engine marketing campaigns, since you can discard and replace non-performing keyphrases and put increased effort toward the phrases that are delivering visitors that become customers. This kind of ongoing analysis is the final piece of the keyphrase puzzle, and allows you to continually target the most important phrases for your industry, even if they change over time.

Conclusion:

Keyphrase compilation, evaluation, and performance are all vitally important to any search engine marketing campaign. While high rankings in search engines are an admirable goal, high rankings for poor keyphrases will consistently deliver poor results.

Integration of this keyphrase process into your overall search engine marketing strategy can dramatically improve your website performance (and thus your bottom line).

First, RAID is not a backup solution – always employ disaster recovery options.

I field queries about – RAID 1 (mirror) software versus hardware solutions from time to time. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Some say adding a hardware RAID controller introduces another point of failure, but the most popular reason by far to use software RAID is cost. If you do go with hardware RAID, make sure that card is compatible with your motherboard.

With BIOS (basic input output system) RAID – you may encounter a few quirks. Essentially, it’s a poor man’s version of software RAID. Motherboards do fail, so if yours gets fried, you’ll probably have to replace it with a similar board. Taking a mirrored drive to another system won’t work if that system can’t track the drive’s volumes.

Do you want – redundancy or performance? Most of us would prefer both. I think software and hardware RAID solutions work fine for redundancy, but hardware RAID holds the advantage in performance, especially if your server is database intensive.

There are other perks to – hardware RAID solutions as well, like notification of specific drive failures. Software RAID solutions typically have problems identifying bad drives, and normally do NOT support hot swaps. The most obvious drawback to software RAID is that it uses cycles from your CPU to manage the array, and while this isn’t quite so bad in RAID 1, it can significantly slow down your server in RAID solutions that involve striping with parity.

For those of you who use multiple operating system environments, hardware RAID is the way to go. If you set up RAID using a specific operating system, only that operating system can (normally) access that array.

Software boot volume limitations – since the operating system has to be running to enable the array, (obviously) the operating system cannot boot from the array.

My recommendation – do what makes sense for your pocketbook and priorities. Software RAID is definitely less expensive, but has performance drawbacks. Hardware RAID costs more, but is feature rich and generally worth the investment.

I just typed in “Let It Snow” on Google – as recommended by a story in the Los Angeles Times.  Instantly, my screen started filling with snowflakes and in just a matter of moments, it fogged over. Fortunately, I could wipe the fog from my screen with my mouse.  I wonder – Is that causing condensation inside my monitor?

Anyway, once your screen becomes unreadable – there is a defrost button in the upper right hand corner that clears your screen.  They do this by turning up your internal monitor temperate remotely. NOT!

Tilt and Askew – Google didn’t stop there. Type either tilt or askew in Google and see what happens. Try scrolling thru the results.

There was also a time when if you typed the word “Gravity” into the search engine you’d watch all the copy on the page plunk to the bottom. It doesn’t do that anymore, but you can see what you missed here.

I’m constantly amazed at how technically advanced my grandchildren have become - I think because of their early exposure to TV and other visual medias. We’ve evolved into a visually rich society – actually a global community. It begins in the early learning and development years of our children. It imprints their thought processes.

Online Video Providers
Enter YouTube and other providers offering video channels, enabling small business to ramp up their marketing venues, giving them the ability to reach global markets, whereas only mega-businesses once ventured. Text is text, and a picture is worth a thousand words, but videos can propel your business to new levels.

Only a few short years ago - television commercials were financially out of the reach for the bulk of small businesses. With the development of high speed broadband networks, TV-like advertising via YouTube suddenly became affordable.

YouTube is a video sharing website - allowing its members to upload, share and comment on an expansive database of videos. While you may be struggling to increase page views to your website, YouTube registers billions of page views monthly. Why? Video sells! It’s RED HOT!

What’s the impact of online video?
I’ve seen studies that projected 3 of 4 adults have watched online videos and on average, nearly 20% do so daily – and just not by themselves. Nearly two-thirds of those shared that experience with someone else or a group. Online video ad spending is approaching $1 Billion annually, if not already there.

Why Use Online Video Marketing?

• They’re practical for businesses wanting to show demonstrations of products or services.
• They’re great for introducing your staff or doing a virtual tour of your facilities.
• They can drive prospects to your website, jumpstarting sales.
• It’s extremely cost effective compared to other advertising venues.

What is everyone watching?
News captures attention across all generations, followed by comedy or humorous videos. Still over 20% view educational videos, and all markets continue to grow exponentially as broadband expands its reach.

Some Tips

• Be Entertaining: To maximize your reach for market penetration, your video must be entertaining and have perceived value to the prospects you’re targeting.
• Be Professional: Presently, over 60% of viewers prefer professionally developed videos versus those developed by amateurs. That gap diminishes with the younger generation, but still holds true.
• Focus on the core product or service you’re featuring: If you’re featuring dedicated servers, save shared hosting for another clip. Spreading your message across multiple platforms distracts your viewers.
• Be Consistent: Branding is important. We all know IBM, HP and Dell, but their marketing campaigns drive home their respective messages with regularity. Consistency is KEY to growing traffic.

My Recommendation
Have some fun. Be creative. Think out of the box. Break out of the direct mail, phone tag day-after-day routine of driving business. Video works! Like every other advertising venue, measure its results, then tweak your presentation and re-measure your results. Practice may not make perfect, but it will improve sales and your bottom line. And that’s where I want to be, right along with you.

A KVM switch (keyboard, video, mouse switch) essentially allows  - a user(s) to access multiple CPUs from a single monitor, keyboard and mouse. KVM switches are found in virtually every data center, because let’s face it; having hundreds or thousands of monitors, keyboards or mice in a DC is unrealistic.

Integrated KVM switching systems provide administrators – KVM, console, and remote power control of thousands of servers, which results in space savings, improved server management, reduced heat issues – and the bottom line, cost savings.

Data Centers typically use enterprise wide solutions – geared to Network Operating Centers (NOC), which allows their engineers to remotely access servers.

If you rent colocation space for your businesses rack servers – most KVM will usually take up 1U of space, up to a 42 port solution.  When ordering, be sure to remember rack mount kits and interface cables.

All KVMs are NOT created equal – variances can be in audio support, client platforms, supported operating systems, interfaces, sharing, remote power management and 208 volt power capability.

What about security? Enterprise level KVMs offer administrators complete control of all the devices that are attached, allowing them to set permissions for all other users.  They can create individual user profiles and assign access privileges. One example of an access privilege would be the ability to define which servers a user could view and access. Some allow time-out features for inactive users.

When you speak about the tradition of Internet technologies - you need only go back a couple of decades, but there is value to understanding the culture of your niche as a tool to connect with visitors on your website.

Staying connected entails identifying  - technologies, traditions or events that exist in your specific niche – that you and your audience find culturally significant. In other words, what has made your niche important to you and your visitors?

Websites with longtail (tradition relevant) keyword-rich titles – help draw a very targeted audience. When we speak of Internet technologies, we’re not necessarily spanning generations of cultures with regard to time, rather information.

Do you connect the vendor-client dots – via timetables, explaining how you, your clients or your industry have grown through the years? Taking this one step further, explain “why you now” concluding with a benefits statement and compelling call-to-action.

This is my Gravatar as the Editor for WDTalk. Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar, which is simply the small square image which appears alongside comments you leave when blog commenting. Gravatars are linked to specific email addresses.

In terms of know, like and trust - a personal Gravatar adds weight to your comments, making you appear more genuine.  Most spammers don’t use Gravatars, so not having one sets off spam signals for a lot of bloggers, including me.

Having a personal Gravatar attaches an image - to a name. So often, I see usernames like anoerzggzz145 and my first thought is that, “I’ve got another spammer.”

I’ll let you judge a few I’ve seen over the past few years:

Acaiberriesqx   - linked to obvious spam

Ford new car extended warranty  - Really? That’s your username? Linked to a sales page!

Zenoxskiiqqqw – Come on?!  Three Q’s? And the associated email address wasn’t much better!

Ok, I understand some visitors have some - pretty quirky usernames, but having a personal Gravatar makes you look less like a spammer and more like a member of the blog.

How to Get a Gravatar

• Go to Gravatar.com
• Click on ‘Get Your Gravatar Today’
• Enter your email address
• Click the link in the confirmation email
• Choose a username and password, then click ‘Sign Up’
• Follow the option to Add an Image
• Upload the best picture of you from your computer.
• Crop the image to your liking, then click ‘Crop and Finish’
• Choose a suitable rating for you Gravatar. (I recommend a G rating)

Know, like and trust are terms relative to - sales, not just face-to-face with a sales representative, but also the Internet. Billions of dollars are spent online every year, much of that with businesses we’ve never heard of – so if you’re missing the know, the like and trust need to be that much more compelling.

Social media sites – most noticeably Facebook, use the “like” button to convey trust, but most business websites rely on professional design, solutions content and competitive pricing to carry the day. And this is where online buyers can sometimes get into trouble.

The ‘lock’ icon and https: lend credibility - to the security of financial transactions, but even fraudulent (or less than honest) businesses can obtain SSL certificates. There are things to look for on sites that imply trust, like a brick and mortar address and phone number. It’s amazing how many ecommerce sites have NO contact information other than a general email address, or contact form. Plus, some use Domain Privacy to hide ownership information about the site itself.

Testimonials convey trust – but not so much if only first names are used, or if the hyperlink points to the site you’re presently visiting.

I once visited a site where the owner was inquiring - how to improve his ranking on Google. One of the first things I noticed on his site was that it had two testimonials from different individuals, but listing the same URL for each.

The first testimonial raved about a service they didn’t even offer on their site, which immediately seemed strange.

The second raved about their customer support. I was curious, so I did a WHOIS on the URL that was listed on the testimonials, and it turns out that domain has never been registered, and the site I was on has only been online for four months.

Would I trust my credit card with that business – not in a million years, and not because the site itself wasn’t professionally designed, or offered solutions that matched my specific requirements, or were even attractively priced. Their trust factor had been compromised.

Beware of red flags when – pondering whether to share your credit card info with businesses online. The Internet is littered with scammers like a minefield .. be careful where you step.

YouTube recently published a Creator Playbook – that delves (extensively) into how to BEST create and optimize your videos. Included are recommendations for metadata optimization, programming/production and social media connections.

Two key topics are “audience approval” and “relevance to query.”  Audience approval simply measures the popularity of your video in terms of views and playing time, and to some extent community factors like comments, subscribers and channel activity. Relevance to query ties into metadata and tags.

Unlike conventional search query - exact match titles carry less weight. You do want to position primary keywords at the beginning of the title, though and branding toward the end.

A key variance from conventional search – lies with meta descriptions because they can be much longer, but here again YouTube recommends putting the most compelling information at the beginning (of course, using keywords).

A little research on what tags – your competitors are using to rank well goes a long way to enhance how your video will fare.

Performance Marketing Insider ran an article earlier this month - about the launch of WordAds by WordPress, wondering whether it could compete with Google’s AdSense.

While I don’t think that’s going to happen overnight - the article did make a couple of great points about the explosive growth of WordPress.

WordPress estimates almost 50,000 new WordPress sites start online every 24 hours. Alexa.com estimates that almost 15 percent of the top 1 million websites are WordPress configurations. The platform has morphed into the most popular full-fledged content management system on the web.

That’s over 18 million NEW WordPress sites each year! Even more significant is the Alexa estimate, based on traffic. Increasing numbers of businesses are upgrading their hosting platforms to WordPress because it has morphed from its early days as a blogging platform to a full fledged dynamic CMS.

Will WordAds succeed? Only time will tell, but my money is on YES.

As Google continues to refine its algorithms to return relevant results - I sometimes don’t want to see results based on where Google thinks I am, my past search history or what Google Plus circle I’m in.

In the graphic below, my default location - is Maryland Heights, MO (West St. Louis County). If my default location was Honolulu, or if I selected my location to be Honolulu, I’d see different results for the search query of “dedicated servers St. Louis,” even though my search was very specific to St. Louis. From Honolulu, WHT dropped from number 2 to number 5, Hostirian remained at number one on both, and a couple of local St. Louis firms moved ahead of WHT (using Maryland Heights).

In the following graphic, I’ve compared search queries, again using Honolulu versus Maryland Heights, but dropping St. Louis from the search query.

In this comparison, the query using Honolulu as the location showed NO results for Hostirian, a St. Louis dedicated server provider. However, the same query using Maryland Heights did show Hostirian on the first page at numbers 11 and 12. Worth noting is that by adding St. Louis to the search query, Hostirian ranked at number one on both, because it is a local St. Louis company.

Of course, if you’re using Chrome – and are logged into your Gmail account, throw all this out of the window. Personalized search takes over, making social book marking all the more important.

I just read an article on how the WordPress community has labeled - ThemeForest as its red headed stepchild, and somewhere near the end of that article they started doing comparisons to other theme services, and Thesis was mentioned a couple of times. Add that one of my favorite bloggers, Ana Hoffman, recommends Thesis, and I became curious how they differed.

While reading about Thesis - I subscribed to a free ebook from their site labeled Nonverbal Website Intelligence – the 5 invisible forces behind effective online marketing, by Derek Halpern. I highly recommend reading this report – all 33 pages.

Some excerpts from the report:

#1 Enlightening Images

Images are an essential element of engaging websites. They communicate feelings, fuel imagination, and immerse people in the story you’re sharing.

Oh, and did I mention, aside from your headline, they’re one of the first things people see when they load your page?

You get it – images are powerful. But let’s face it, not all of us can afford the time or money to pay a photographer top dollar to take the perfect picture. So, what can we do? 

A. Line of Sight

Imagine you’re walking down an empty city block and you spot someone curiously looking up at the sky. Would you quickly glance up to see what has their attention?

Probably. People, almost innately, follow the gaze of other people. Now you’re wondering, what does this have to do with websites?

#2 Effortless Navigation

When people visit your site, they’re trying to find something. It could be con­tent, contact information, or anything else your site may offer.

And, how do people find what they want? Your website’s navigation.

You may think you have this in check, but there are vital pieces of Nonverbal Website Intelligence that help your visitors find what they want in a more natural, effortless way.

Before I jump into the details, let me set the stage…

Step 4: The Complete Guide to Speeding Up Website Load Times

Recently, Willie Jackson, a speed optimization expert, prepared an article for the official DIYthemes blog, which shows you, in detail, how you can speed up your website. I highly recommend you read his article from start to fin­ish. If nothing else, you’ll learn exactly what you need to ask your web host or tech guy with regards to your website’s speed.

Performance Unleashed: How to Optimize Websites for Speed

They also offer tons of valuable content - on how to improve your website, including:

• Free Training Seminars

• High-Quality Workbooks and Reports

• Live Webinars

• Informative, How-To Blog Articles

• And Various Other Teaching Materials

Update: September 23, 2011

CALIFORNIA REPEALS THE AFFILIATE NEXUS TAX LAW

See this Press Release by the Performance Marketing Association.

PMA executive director, Rebecca Madigan stated, “The signing of this legislation means these 25,000 web-based entrepreneurs will be able to get back in business. For the PMA, this issue has always been about keeping the vibrant Affiliate Marketing sector of the economy strong and growing.”

Original article written July 19, 2011

Thousands of entrepreneurs market other vendors wares as affiliates - but it seems an increasing number of states are defining virtual stores as an in-state entity for the purpose of collecting sales tax, even though the affiliate may not have a physical presence in their state.

I can’t confirm the list below - but they have all reportedly terminated their affiliate memberships in California.

6pm.com   1-800-PetMeds   Amazon.com   Amerimark   Backcountry   Bag.com   BagsBuy.com   Barware.com   BedBathStore B&H Photo   Boden   BrickHouse Electronics   BuildDirect.com   Cabela’s   Calvin Klein Jeans   Candelabras.com   CD Universe CKU   Collections Etc.   Compact Appliance   Costume Craze   CreateForLess.com   CSN Stores   Cymax   Dermadoctor   Dr. Leonard’s   Endless.com   Eurosport   Fabric.com   Fingerhut   FootSmart   GAIAM   Garden.com   Gardeners Supply Gettington   GiftBaskets.com   Hayneedle Stores   Herroom   K. Jordan   Luggage Online   Maryland Square   MetroKitchen Overstock.com   Overstock International   PC Connection   Potpourri Group   Shindigz   Shoe.com   ShoeBuy.com ShopBop.com   ShoppersChoice.com   Silkpalms.com   SmartBargains.com   Spiritline   StumpParty   TABcom theWineEnthusiast   ThinkGeek   TimeForMeCatalog   Total Gym   Woot.com   Zappos.com

Understandably, these states desperately need to increase revenues - but I wonder with so many vendors terminating their affiliate memberships there, will California’s anticipated increase in sales revenue ever come to fruition?

Your thoughts?

There are lots of options for monetizing your blog – and not all of them may work for your specific site. First to mind is targeted advertising; if you specialize in outdoor recreation, then it makes sense to target vendors that cater to outdoor enthusiasts. Of course, your site needs to look and feel professional, and that entails not just great (relevant) content, but intuitive navigation and the proper use of white space.

Too many blogs lock themselves into Adsense – expecting huge windfalls, but targeted advertising does work. To market this effectively, you’ll need to track statistics on your site, and advertise that ad spots are available. Once you contract a couple of vendors, others will follow suit to keep pace with their competitors.

Don’t limit yourself – to one form of advertising. Aside from Google Adsense, there’s:

Microsoft’s adCenter – Market your business on Bing and Yahoo! Search, using Microsoft Advertising adCenter, and capture 30.7 percent of the U.S. online market known for buying, not just browsing.

Chitika Online Advertising Network – A Data Analytics Company in the Business of Advertising

Clicksor – Deliver Where It Matters. Clicksor.com Inc is a contextual online advertising network. Utilizing our contextual & re-targeting marketing technology, each ad impression is monetized for the highest effective CPM for our publishers as well as the greatest possible ROI for our advertisers.

Advertising.com – The AOL Advertising.com Group

adBrite – Easy. Efficient. Effective. adBrite is the largest independent ad exchange offering an entirely transparent marketplace, direct access to superior campaign data and analytics and ultimately, greater control over what matters most – results.

Advertise other company’s products or services – via affiliate links, and I don’t mean just Amazon. If there’s real interest in your content, approaching smaller companies may work well for your blog.

Sell your own products, services or content – just don’t come across too aggressively, or your site will appear spammy. There is a point where too many ads overpowers your reader base.

Of course, you can always ask for donations.

It seems like I see a new web hosting review site daily - and most share a common theme – their top ten web hosting providers all look like affiliate links. By affiliate links, I mean the web hosting review site owners either make a commission every time a shopper clicks thru from one of their top ten sites, or purchases hosting from them.

Sadly, the majority of review sites actually have - NO verifiable reviews. Most of the reviews I read are either from shills or disgruntled clients, or are so old, they don’t pertain to a provider’s current operations.

From Wikipedia:

A shill or plant is a person who helps another person or organization to sell goods or services without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with the seller. The shill pretends to have no association with the seller/group and gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer. The person or group that hires the shill is using crowd psychology, to encourage other onlookers or audience members (who are unaware of the set-up) to purchase the said goods or services.

For shoppers searching for the best web hosting provider - web hosting review sites may NOT be the best resource. A better option would be to visit any number of web hosting forums, like WebHostingTalk or HostingDiscussion. Reviews there are verified by moderators of their respective forums. One of the prerequisites is that you have to be hosted with a provider to post a review about them – verified by your URL. As well, members of these forums weigh in on the validity or merits of each review.

Google is still one of your best friends when it comes to doing research - on web hosting providers, combined with pre-sales chats with prospective hosts.

Have you ever heard the term - “Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak”? Buying means making a decision, and that decision making process begins with a need to ease some pain, then logically progresses (in person) through stages of talking, thinking and actions toward closing the sale.

Online though, there are no body clues – no sales representative to nod their head up and down, looking for a yes response, cueing the prospect to follow suit. Online, compelling landing & checkout pages are vital to your success.

Buying anything is an emotional process – for some much more so than others, like me. Using the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell to evoke an emotion (tied to your offer) helps reinforce your solution in the eyes of your prospect.

Closing the sale – isn’t simply a yes or a no. It’s a logical progression from a search query to the point “Add to Cart. “ The term, “Always Be Closing,” applies to each and every page the prospect touches until the order is completed, and really should continue beyond that, with either a survey or recommendations for other products and services based on what they just purchased.

Giving your prospect too many choices – or making the navigation from Point “Search” to Point “Buy’ difficult, is just as bad.

Last month, Matt Cutts from Google posted - on his blog, “What cool new websearch ideas should Google launch in 2012?” That article received 254 comments like the ones listed below:

• “I’d love a “search by date” and “search by newest” options to be expanded to the main search functions (and as a webmaster, the option added to Site Search). Too often I am looking for something very specific that happened recently, but get older articles that Google deems to be more relevant, even though from my perspective, they are useless.”
• “The other thing I would like to see (and rumors say it is coming) is the scroll down result effect you see for image searches being applied to web searches so there is no longer page 1, page 2, page 3, etc. results. It might level the playing field a bit and would certainly make scanning results easier.”
• “I would like to have the option of turning personal search on and off for when I need to see different results.”
• “And a “-1″ button in the search result, so I can penalize pages I don’t want to see.”

Didn’t your Mom tell you not to play with fire? Weak passwords put your personal identity or business data at risk of being compromised. How important is password security? A simple Google search for password security just now returned over 540 million results – that’s significant! I cannot overemphasize how important it is to use STRONG passwords.

Some guidelines

• Use at least eight characters, with mixed case letters (upper and lower case)
• Use a password that can be typed quickly (to prevent over the shoulder spying)
• Mix alpha numeric characters in a seemingly random manner.
• Change your password regularly.
• Do NOT use words that are included in any dictionary – even encrypted, these can be cracked in seconds!!
• Do NOT use dates
• Do NOT use information that can be easily obtained about you. This includes your nickname, your pet’s name, your hometown, etc.
• Do NOT use all numbers or all alphabet characters – mix them!
• Do NOT reveal your password to anyone!

There are any number of websites that help you understand - how vulnerable your passwords are – one of those is http://howsecureismypassword.net/ Simply enter your password and it will return how long it would take to crack it. Mine was six thousand years, but I could improve that by using a symbol instead of just letters and numbers.

Microsoft also has a password security strength checker - located at https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx. Starting at a rating of STRONG, I had to add 10 symbols to raise that level of security to BEST. Going back to HowSecureIsMyPassword, when I typed in Microsoft’s BEST, here is the result I got - It would take a desktop PC about 523 sextillion years to crack your password. Works for me!

I read an interesting article that contends - that keywords beyond the top ten (in sum) refer more traffic than the top ten combined. This was attributed to a long tail effect. It went on to say that the terms that are most popular (most managed by site owners) are rarely those that provide the most business.

I couldn’t disagree more – as I’m seeing a growing trend toward more descriptive content, offering solutions to problems or issues – than I am to SEO structured content (for example, keyword saturation). Google has been stressing relevancy for some time, and webmasters are realizing the importance of combining keyword research with content – in other words, writing for their audience (visitors) rather than sculpturing their site for SERPS.

Content that reads naturally - (entices all five senses) and that has a strong call-to-action converts at higher ratios. Which do you prefer from the two examples below?

Susie’s Flowers has the right boutique for you! We carry an assortment of flowers from roses to lilies. Visit our online shop and photo gallery to view our current boutiques.

Susie’s exotic flower shop specializes in custom arrangements for every occasion; from weddings to back yard BBQ’s. From prom queens to blushing brides, imagine yourself adorned with a deep purple orchid corsage, being presented with a boutique of red and white long stemmed roses from your special partner. That’s the dream we deliver at Susie’s exotic flowers. Search our extensive online gallery of corsages and boutiques, or come by in person. We’d love to meet you.

The second example uses emotions to - drive traffic and conversions, and if you’re like me, buying anything (taking money out of my wallet) is an emotional experience.

Burst versus swap discussions are normally – comparisons of OpenVZ versus Xen memory management. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, with burst associated with VZ and swap to Xen. Assuming everything else is equal, which would you consider is the better option – 1024MB guaranteed (SLM) or 768MB guaranteed (burstable to 2048MB)?

I just read of an experiment – pairing the two technologies under load conditions. The test involved an OpenVZ container (512MB dedicated RAM with 512MB burst) versus a XEN based VPS (768MB with swap). A basic Debian 5 64 bit OS was installed on each with LAMP, email and Jabber/XMPP. The total OpenVZ memory usage equaled 445MB versus XEN’s 296MB.

So what can we take away from this test? If you’re running Java or other applications that tend to allocate large amounts of virtual memory, OpenVZ containers (without burst) will have less guaranteed memory available. Enter burst .. OpenVZ needs an appropriate amount of burst (usually 1.5 to 2 times the guaranteed).

Beyond guaranteed to burst and swap – access latency on RAM (burst) is measured in nanoseconds whereas swap (HDD) is measured in milliseconds (much much slower). Swap is slow, so you want ample guaranteed (SLM) to handle your applications. Plus, your system cannot execute stuff out of swap. It has to be in active RAM to execute. With both burst and swap, you want just enough allocation to handle inactive data, keeping as much active data in guaranteed RAM as possible.

Overselling can be – an issue with OpenVZ, e.g., killing your application if it bursts beyond the guaranteed resource allocation, instead of simply slowing down as with a true dedicated server. The kernel of Virtuozzo cannot be modified as it’s based on an OS template. By contrast (using default settings), Xen doesn’t allow overselling, so a physical server with 16GB of RAM would be limited to 64 x 256MB virtual machines. Plus, XEN allows you to fully modify the kernel, so advanced users can compile and load their own modules, resulting in properly virtualized memory, IO and scheduler – that’s stable and predictable.

How do you measure the success of your website? Is it an increase in link popularity, search engine results pages (SERPS), hits per day, unique visitors, pages viewed, length of time on your site, conversions – or what? What keywords are visitors entering into search engines to find your site? 

Are you actively managing your websites? In order to manage anything, you need some benchmarks to measure against. Web analytics provide those benchmarks. Analytics are indicators that reflect the potential of your website. As Internet professionals, we all know that we can’t manage what we can’t measure, and that goes to say, you can’t monetize it either.

How would you know if your site is underperforming? Is it as simple as tracking unique visitors or page views? Not really. There can be an endless number of other performance indicators that define and reflect the success, or lack thereof, of a particular campaign. Are you sending out direct mail? Doing email broadcasts? Advertising in print media? Running pay per click (PPC) ads? Are these tied to your website? If you’re a solutions provider, analytics analysis helps both you and your customers by defining opportunities.

Knowing how a visitor arrived at your website, when they arrived and what they did on your site is invaluable. Aligning that data should define the scope of future marketing campaigns.

What’s important to your organization? This all starts with what’s important to you. Tie that in to your analytics metrics. Decide what key indicators best align with the objectives of your campaigns. Come up with a list of a few basic indicators that will reflect the most insight. One key indicator could be – how many visitors does it take to achieve your goal? If that goal is for visitors to purchase product directly from your website, conversion factors are important measurements. If your goal is to generate leads or brand awareness, would poor page design or navigation hurt? Landing pages are immensely important, especially those that draw the most traffic to your site via relevant keywords or extended keyword phrases.

Tweaking your website What typically happens when a visitor first lands on your website – first impressions?  If you draw 100 unique visitors to your main landing page daily, but only 2 click through to your shopping cart, could tweaking your landing page improve your response rates, and ultimately the number of conversions?

Are some pages on your website not attracting visitors at all? If not, it’s probably time to update those pages. Likewise, if viewers are highly engaged in a specific content area of your website, would linking other parts of your site to that content help?

My recommendation Start with keyword analysis. Enter the keyword or extended keyword phrases that attract the most visitors to your site. Take notice of the results pages, specifically your competitors’ sites. If their sites rank higher in SERPS than yours, what is different between the sites? Is it their content? Their navigation? Their meta tags? Displaying higher in search engine results pages dramatically improves website performance. Take that information and your analytics analysis – to shape and redefine your site for success.

I read this morning that an idea without execution is worthless – meaning that you can have the latest greatest widget in development, but until you build it, ship it and let the idea see the light of day, it has NO value. On some fronts I would agree, but value is really about perception. Research and development has real value whether the original idea ever sees the light of day.

A common icon for fresh ideas – is the light bulb (I see the light), but commercially available light bulbs were the accumulation of hundreds of failed experiments. And then you have offshoots that spawn billion dollar industries, like a popular ED medication that was initially being tested for hair restoration.

Should you wait – for perfect market conditions, or until each and every bug is worked out? Of course not! Real world testing is essential. Virtually all major vendors do test marketing, to sort out what works from what doesn’t.  Once you settle on what works, do that over and over and over until the market dictates otherwise.

Whether you’re designing websites – or formulating search engine strategies, you can never really measure your efforts until your work is out there.  Development doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes, there’s a competitive advantage to being on the ‘bleeding edge’ or ‘leading edge’ of ideas, products or services.

I was talking to one of my friends a few weeks back - just before she was to give a business presentation about paper. I know – exciting stuff. Anyway, she was a little apprehensive, as a lot of us are just prior to addressing large groups of prospects.

This was a presentation to a local IAAP (administrative assistant professionals) meeting addressing how to keep costs down, new products, workplace wellness, and how her company could help them. I knew she’d be fine because she’s a pro.

After the presentation, she wrote, “I have to tell you, the “No matter what kind of job you have, we have the paper for it” and the toilet paper has been a big hit and icebreaker.  I’ve had to leave it for people who weren’t in – I’ve gotten phone calls from people that heard about it.  I tell them it’s the sample of the month and their smile for the day!

I don’t know if she used a story board to compile her main point of view, but she did have hand-outs that definitely broke the ice – the tension between her prospects and herself. And those hand-outs were relevant to her business.

She engaged her audience and made them part of the experience.

Involve your prospects in the process - A large part of giving successful business presentations is involving your prospects in the process – asking questions, looking for a show of hands or positive response. Get out from behind the podium and move about – be accessible, make periodic eye contact, pause for effect and emphasis – take command so that all eyes are upon you.

Pattern your presentation to resemble a conversation. Look at your audience as you would in normal conversation, pausing at the end of your points to allow your audience to process what you’ve just said.

My wife is an instructor and excellent communicator. She’s always telling me to touch my prospects senses of sight, smell, taste, feel and hearing. Appealing to their senses engages their emotions. Give your presentation so that your audience will see, smell, taste, feel and hear what you’re saying.

The presentation itself - In the body of your presentation, tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them. And know what you’re telling them – have it down cold, meaning don’t read – let your words flow naturally. And smile – be excited.

Way way back, in the ’80s, I had to give a four hour presentation to a prospect in a bid situation. I knew the content inside out, but dragged my wife into the living room the night before and rehearsed the entire presentation with her. I still believe that preparation helped me win the bid – for a whopping $152,000.00 (including service).

What to avoid - This is a touchy subject. Have you ever filmed yourself giving a presentation? You won’t believe it’s really you on the playback.

• Avoid fillers – ahs, uhs and extended silence.
• Avoid nervous habits like scratching your head.
• Avoid concentrating on one section of your audience – spread the wealth around.
• Avoid excessive hand gestures.
• And don’t turn your back on your audience.

Call to action - Every successful marketing campaign has a ‘call to action.” That could be an offer that’s exclusive to your presentation, or to a deadline set by upper management. Combining value and urgency drives sales campaigns. A  call to action can be as simple as moving the sale forward by setting up appointments, up to signing contracts for immediate discounts or freebies.

Revised Nov 7, 2011

Colors affect your mood – mentally and physically, and this varies by geographic location and culture, and even time. When you’re designing your website, what mood are you looking to portray – a call to action, a sense of loyalty, something safe or very professional?

As designers – we need to understand both color theory and the psychology of color, especially with ecommerce applications. Red has always been perceived as a mood stimulus invoking aggression or a call-to-action, but it can also be perceived as STOP. In China, it symbolizes celebration and luck.

Orange is actually the preferred color – for increased click-through “ADD to Cart” or “Order Here” images. For an online business, combinations in shades of red, blue and brown work well. Blue lends a perception of loyalty, while brown provides overall balance. For professional sites, white is normally a great choice, but in eastern cultures, white symbolizes coldness and sterility.

One of my favorite colors – is purple (very exotic), but purple doesn’t fit everywhere. Why do Kings, Queens and even priests wear purple robes – because purple implies royalty and sophistication. One place it does fit is in sites about interior design, accentuating wealth.

Everyone Is Going Green – because it represents nature. Its cool quality soothes, calms and has great healing powers, which is why it’s often worn in operating rooms by surgeons. If your target audience is China or France, green is not a great choice for packaging solutions. In China, green hats mean a man’s wife is cheating on him. In India, green is the color of Islam.

The Internet is information intensive - with major search engines like Google and Bing assigning priority to content on websites that lend value to the end user.  Gone are the days where SEO experts could simply employ search engine tactics to trick sites onto page one to increase their advertising revenues.  As the Internet attracts more computer savvy enthusiasts, the value of  search engines results pages (SERPS) increases in turn. The greatest content is of little value if no one sees it.

Content is KING - More and more, you’ll see websites on page one and two of search queries with relevant content. I personally hate clicking on a site that tells me nothing – instead just leading me to countless pages of links going nowhere.  While the major search engines do not reveal their search algorithms, they do make recommendations, for instance with Google’s Webmasters Tools.  Relevant content creates value, and value sells products and services – and advertising.

Content should have appeal and uniqueness. If a prospect were searching for a web hosting provider, and clicking between results, why would they be intrigued by your site?

• Do you have products or services that drastically vary from hundreds of competitive providers?
• Do you offer a knowledge base that’ll help with their research?
• Do you offer live chat or 800 phone services for those with questions?
• Does your site appeal to their senses (a tour)?
• Is it graphically pleasing?
• Is the type well written and easy to read?
• Does the information on your site flow, and is it easily navigable?
• Do you have a site map?
• Is your pricing competitive?
• Do you offer the culture of your business – it’s management, history and valued clients?

Content is about supplying answers (and solutions) - If you offer Live Chat on your website, when asked a question you cannot answer off of the top of your head, admit you don’t know the answer, but promise you will find it … or at least give the perception that you have the ability to get the answer. It’s extremely important to get back to the prospect in timely fashion, whether you have the answer they’re looking for or not.  You can’t be everything to everybody, but you can be professional in every contact with every prospect and client.

Under promise and over deliver - is a phrase I’ve heard a lot. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. This applies to your websites as well. Putting relevant content on your website is so much more than an SEO strategy. It’s a business strategy – one of providing value, and that’s what drives business long term.

Revised Oct 31, 2011 to reflect Bing update.

Bing clarifies stance on keyword meta tags - if you’re tagging keywords in WordPress, you need to read this!

Volumes have been written about – keyword meta tags and keyword density. While Bing still looks at keyword meta tags, Google does not. If you’re like us, the majority of our referrals are from Google, followed in the far distance by Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. Don’t forget about Bing, though – if you’re looking to maximize your SEO efforts because indiscriminately throwing in tons of keywords on your keyword meta tags could result in spamming penalties.

I have a keyword statistics plug in on this site - and found that it was generating keyword meta tags for some absurd keywords, so I blocked the ability of robots to read those tags.

Staying in the game means – keeping in touch with industry trends. Thus, I recommend Google Webmaster Tools as a viable resource for Search Engine Optimization of your site.

In the following video clip – Matt Cutts from Google officially addresses a lingering SEO controversy on the viability of keyword meta tags.

The full article can be seen on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Bandwidth is defined as:

Measure of data flow rate in digital networks

From Wikipedia:

In website hosting, the term “bandwidth” is often incorrectly used to describe the amount of data transferred to or from the website or server within a prescribed period of time, for example, bandwidth consumption accumulated over a month measured in gigabytes per month. The more accurate phrase used for this meaning of a maximum amount of data transfer each month or given period is monthly data transfer.

On hosting packages - one of  the features always listed is monthly bandwidth allowed. There seems to be some confusion converting Mbps to GB or TB per month, so I’ve assembled a quick reference, based on a 30 day month.

There’s a lot of controversy in web hosting circles – on how to compete with bandwidth offers, with some providers offering unlimited bandwidth on their plans, although most restrict this to shared hosting only.

Unlike most, I suppose, when I see the term UNLIMITED - I always look for the fine print, very much the same way I view the term FREE. I’m like, I know there’s a catch, but now where to find out what it is.

And I’m not saying all Unlimited offers are bad – just that it normally pays huge dividends long term to know what to expect when your website gets popular, and starts pushing a ton of traffic. Some providers handle Unlimited very well, while others will boot you in heart beat for violating their Terms and Conditions (buried somewhere in there is a clause that explains how their Unlimited offer really isn’t Unlimited).

I ran across an advertisement this morning – for Unlimited bandwidth on a dedicated server, which is very rare. I won’t say who the provider is, but here is a quote from their website:

Naturally with unlimited traffic for more cost transparency

(note that there is no asterisk on traffic)

Under benefits, they show

Traffic                   Unlimited*

(now comes an asterisk – uh oh, have to read the fine print)

At the bottom of the page, in small print

*There are no charges for overage. We will permanently restrict the connection speed to 10 MBit/s if more than 10,000 GB/month are used (the basis for calculation is for outgoing traffic only. Incoming and internal traffic is not calculated). 100 MBit/s speed can be optionally restored by committing to pay 6,90 € (incl. VAT) per additional TB used. Please see here for information on how to proceed.

So what can we glean from this clause? First, that their servers are on a 100Mbps uplink port, which is an industry standard, but it also LIMITS your data transfer to that speed. And then there’s that opening sentence about no charges for overage – but wait, what overages? I thought this was unlimited.

On to 10,000GB/month or 10TB/month – that’s a lot of data transfer, but it isn’t “unlimited.” OK, so your site has pushed in excess of 10TB so far this month, and you got hit with a notice that your port speed is now “permanently” restricted to 10Mbps, or one tenth of what they could allow.

Option 1: If you expect a continuing excess of traffic limit, we offer for 6.90 € each additional GB of bandwidth to the permanent establishment to 100 Mbit / sec.

Notice the hyperlink here in their clause on how to proceed. Seems that permanent really isn’t permanent if you start paying, but wait – the clause says 6.90 per additional TB used, but when clicking through, Option 1 states 6.90 for each additional GB of bandwidth – that’s a HUGE difference. I can’t help but think one of those is a typo.

Again, I’m not saying Unlimited is necessarily bad – just that you need to calculate the risks associated with these offers by reading the fine print first. Whether or not a provider offers limits on bandwidth or offers unlimited is not a reflection of the quality of their respective services.

Revised Oct 21, 2011

Private versus Public Cloud Solutions
Let’s face it, there are BILLIONS of dollars invested in existing IT infrastructure. As more and more enterprise vendors step into the cloud arena, will business in general migrate to the public cloud or opt instead to keep much of their investment in legacy code and custom applications in-house via a private cloud?

The future of cloud computing is up in the air (pun intended)
At this point, we don’t really know how cloud technology is going to shake out. Even if cloud technology gets huge, there’s likely to be a split between private and public clouds for the foreseeable decade. I think as the industry matures, you’ll see commodity services migrate to the public cloud and mission-critical stuff linger in a private cloud.

OK, so what is cloud computing?
Essentially, cloud computing is simply another way of delivering computing resources to run websites and web applications. It allows clients to scale their operations, horizontally and vertically, based on the demands of their users, while ensuring that there are adequate resources to support their apps. You can think of it as technology services delivered on-demand.

Traditional web hosting services are offered in packages with set limits on disk space and data transfer, so as traffic fluctuates, data and transfer needs vary resulting in excess, unused capacity during lean times.

Who could benefit from Cloud Services?
Essentially, everyone could benefit from cloud technology. Businesses that experience seasonal spikes, especially eCommerce retailers, where 80+ percent of their business peaks during holiday seasons, are prime candidates for cloud services.Cloud computing offers those businesses enough services to meet their increased traffic demands, then the option to scale back after the holidays, aligning their operating costs with revenue.

Taking the lead from the BIG vendors
Nearly all of the BIG vendors, from Microsoft to HP and IBM to CISCO, are talking cloud, with most listing their top two priorities as virtualization and cloud computing (virtualization is a cloud enabler). Google and Amazon already host public clouds while vendors like EMC are promoting solutions that virtualize existing servers and storage (private cloud).

Types of private versus public cloud solutions
As the following graphic from Microsoft highlights, there are choices to both private and public cloud services. Of course, these are not all inclusive. In the following months, I’ll address different cloud scenarios, demystifying some of the confusion about what cloud services really offer

There are over 500 pages of articles - on Wikipedia related to DDoS attacks, and a quick Google search this morning returned 3 1/2 million results. So what are DDoS attacks and should you be concerned?

I found a great definition of DDoS at TechTarget.com:

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is one in which a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted system. The flood of incoming messages to the target system essentially forces it to shut down, thereby denying service to the system to legitimate users.

In a typical DDoS attack, a hacker (or, if you prefer, cracker) begins by exploiting a vulnerability in one computer system and making it the DDoS master. It is from the master system that the intruder identifies and communicates with other systems that can be compromised. The intruder loads cracking tools available on the Internet on multiple — sometimes thousands of — compromised systems. With a single command, the intruder instructs the controlled machines to launch one of many flood attacks against a specified target. The inundation of packets to the target causes a denial of service.

I’ve read tons of threads about DDoS attacks - on web hosting forums, but didn’t fully realize how destructive they could be, or how hard they are to mitigate. After reading through some articles like the ones below, I’ve come to realize that these attacks can, in fact, cripple a provider’s ability to deliver stable hosting solutions to not just businesses, large or small, but to the infrastructure of governments, as well.

DDoS Attacks On the Rise in 2011

The company’s semi-annual Web Hacking Incident Database (WHID) report found the attacks jumped 22 percent from the first half of 2010, overtaking methods such as SQL injections and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. DDoS attacks occupied 32% of attacks while SQL injection and XSS attacks took up 21% and 9% respectively.

Head of Russian Payment Processor held over DDoS-for-Hire plot

 One of the co-founders of ChronoPay (a Russian 3PP – 3rd Party Payment Processor) was arrested on the alleged connection between him and a hacker who was hired to run a distributed denial of service attacks against a business rival. Russian Pavel Vrublevsky who is also an owner in a company called RS-Promotion …

Malware in Recent Korean DDoS Attacks Destroys Systems

 There has been quite a bit of news recently about distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks against a number of South Korean websites. About 40 sites– including the Presidential, National Intelligence Service, Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, and the National Assembly–were targeted over the weekend, beginning around …

WordPress.com DDoS Attacks Primarily From China

 After recovering from the largest Distributed Denial of Service attack in the service’s history (“multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second”) yesterday morning, blog host WordPress.com was attacked again very early this morning, finally stabilizing its …

There is a DDoS mitigation industry devoted to - fighting these attacks, and some companies are better than others. So how would you know which DDoS mitigation company is best suited to minimize your risks? Like every other industry, longevity speaks volumes – how long have they been in business? Some questions to ask:

• What’s their track record?
• How many attacks do they mitigate each month?
• What is their typical “time to mitigate?”
• How much bandwidth do they have dedicated to mitigating attacks? (DDoS attacks take up a LOT of bandwidth)
• How is their network globally distributed?
• Which tools and techniques do they employ to detect, analyze, and mitigate DDoS attacks?

I spend a fair of time researching plug ins - for WordPress, normally referenced on blog comments on sites I frequent regularly. Every now and again, a plugin will catch my eye and I’ll take a few moments to investigate. Just this morning, I stumbled upon a plugin that sounded terrific, plus it averaged 4 stars across 17 reviews. When I clicked on “Details,” however, this popped up:

Warning: This plugin has not been tested with your current version of WordPress.

Ok, so what if it hasn’t been tested - with my current version of WordPress? Would the plugin still work? Would it crash my site? After all, I have had one plug in crash my site before and once is enough for me. Did I install the plugin? NO WAY. Upon further checking, the plugin hadn’t been updated for 950 days – that’s almost 3 years!

WordPress is a prime target for hackers - I think because it’s hugely popular, with tens of millions of sites online. Outdated plugins are an invitation to disaster, so each morning I check my WordPress dashboard for pending comments, broken links AND pending plugin updates. I would recommend backing up your site first, then performing any upgrades to WordPress versions or plugins.

In an earlier article entitled -  ”Are your applications secure?,” I talked about SQL injection threats. It’s a threat that refuses to simply go away.

Just this morning I stumbled upon a thread on a web hosting forum - about an OP (original poster) who had his shared account terminated by his web hosting provider for being hacked twice. He was clearly the victim of the hacks, but the host deemed the OP was responsible for keeping his sites safe, so that his sites would not affect other clients on their server.

The site in question was a WordPress site - with a couple of plug ins activated – nothing out of the ordinary. It was duly noted that WordPress sites attract a lot of hack attempts, and the more popular they are (lots of traffic), the more attempts. Obviously, the OP needs to find another web hosting provider, but his troubles are probably far from over. Should he install the same plug ins on his site at his new host, the hack will most likely reoccur. Why?

One of the plug ins the OP alluded to was - Penny Auction, on which a “hack advisory” was recently issued by ngenuity-is.com.

Recommended plug ins that help fight intrusion attempts:

Login LockDown - Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range. This helps to prevent brute force password discovery. Currently the plugin defaults to a 1 hour lock out of an IP block after 3 failed login attempts within 5 minutes. This can be modified via the Options panel. Admisitrators can release locked out IP ranges manually from the panel.

WordPress Firewall 2 - This is an updated version of the popular WordPress Firewall plugin, with fixes for all known bugs and a few new features!

This WordPress plugin investigates web requests with simple, WordPress-specific heuristics, to identify and stop the most obvious attacks. There are a few powerful, generic modules that do this; but they’re not always installed on web servers, and usually difficult to configure.

This plugin intelligently whitelists and blacklists pathological-looking phrases, based on which field they appear within, in a page request (unknown/numeric parameters vs. known post bodies, comment bodies, etc.). Its purpose is not to replace prompt and responsible upgrading, but rather to mitigate 0-day attacks and let bloggers sleep better at night.

WordPress Security Scan - checks your WordPress website/blog for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions such as:

1. Passwords
2. File permissions
3. Database security
4. Version hiding
5. WordPress admin protection/security
6. Removes WP Generator META tag from core code