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A Guide to Website Traffic Optimization

https://www.todhost.com/blog/a-guide-to-website-traffic-optimization/

If you have ever had time to review your website speed and how it can be improved, you would have seen the need to pay attention to image compression and optimization. Every post on the subject of website speed improvement harps on image optimization. The fact is that images form a large chunk of the size of web pages and as much as possible,, it is recommended that images be optimized to reduce there sizes. Of course, having smarter images that are compressed to minimal sizes will improve web page load time.

Traditionally, most website owners resize their images with tools like Photoshop and and image manager. While these tools are great, they do not achieve the best compression needed for optimal website speed. Working with specialized compression tools, which we will list later, can boost website speed optimally and just what you need to achieve that fast speed and optimize your website user experience.

Why is Image Compression Important?

The short answer is that image compression reduces the image file size and speeds up page load times. Additionally, it affects your website user experience. No one really enjoys a slow website. A slow website usually will have high bounce and exit rates These are indicators of poor user experience and Google uses these metrics to determine a website usefulness. Page speed itself is a Google ranking factor.

Read more: https://www.todhost.com/blog/best-free-online-image-compression-tools/

[quote author=IyaTola post=134873004][/quote]Have you thought about your baby if you leave him/her? I tell you, in the condition you are, you are still better than many.

You need to return to your parents and leave him to take care of your baby. If the baby is a girl, don't leave her with him because the description you have given of him is not so good.

Services delivered through websites are not personal, therefore trust and credibility are crucial in the customer buying decision process especially for ecommerce websites. Generally speaking, because online services are delivered through a medium that you cannot feel or touch, judging service quality is strongly tied to the credibility of the medium through which the service is delivered.

Building website credibility starts with building customer confidence. This is the focus of this post – how to build the credibility of your website to increase its conversion, reduce bounce rate and reduce the number of people who turn away from your website.

Trust is everything for a website owner. When it comes to running a website, making sure that your audience trusts you and your brand is critical, and that’s where credibility comes in. After all, if visitors don’t find your site trustworthy, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere. They cannot see you to explain the quality of service, you cannot deliver the service personally and even when you are known, they need to trust that you are the person communicating.

There are several ways to boost your site’s credibility, and fortunately, most of them happen to be easy to implement. For example, simply setting up an SSL certificate might be enough to increase your conversions. Customers trust websites that implement the SSL protocol more than those who do not. So one way to build trust and credibility for your website is to implement SSL on your site.

Further reading:
4 Critical Factors That Impact SEO

A Simple Guide to Remarketing a Poor Performing Website

Tips and Tricks That Improve Website Conversion Rate
It is quite easy to do this and in very simple steps, you can have SSL enabled on your website. All you will need to do is to order SSL and contact our customer support to do the rest for you. At Todhost, you can have your SSL enabled and installed on your hosting account for free. Just contact customer support after your order and we will take it from there.

Also read:

Website Security Guide For Shared Hosting

6 Ways to Shield Websites From Security Hacks

Now, let us explore why website credibility is crucial for a successful website and how you can enhance yours.

Why Trust Matters for Ever Website
Trust and credibility are hard to quantify, but they’re vital for any website that hopes to succeed. For example, most people wouldn’t want to engage with a site that spreads misinformation or doesn’t handle data securely.

There are several ways credibility can benefit your site – here are some of the reasons you should be serious about your website credibility:

Higher conversion rates. If people trust you, they may be more willing to spend their money on your site. We live in a world where it has become increasingly difficult to trust people. Despite efforts of website hosting companies and domain managers to curtail internet fraud, there are still websites that are fraudulent and will continue to be difficult to detect. This has made people more skeptical and will want to be convinced that it is not out of place to do business on a particular website. If people can trust you, they will be willing to transact with you and so it is a good investment to build the trust of your website.
More sharing of content. Once you are trusted, the information you provide can always be taken to be true and shared with others. Users only tend to share content they consider reliable, which is where credibility comes in. Content sharing has a lot of positives. One of such positive values of content sharing is that it helps your Search Engine Optimization, SEO, efforts. The more people share the content from your website, the more links you get. The more links that come to your website, the more Google considers your website to be trusted and rewards you with better ranking.
Increased social endorsement. People are more likely to provide positive reviews and testimonials if a site seems credible. This is especially valuable, as lots of users rely on reviews and word of mouth to make their decisions about online purchases.
Trust builds referrals. When you are trusted, it is more likely to get referrals to your website.

As you can see above, there are key reasons why trust matters. With that in mind, let’s find out more about how to earn it!

How to Build Your Website Credibility
There are lots of ways a website can build up its credibility. For instance, a solid core strategy is to publish relevant valuable content over the long term in order to attract a captive audience. However, for this article, we’ll focus on methods that can be implemented quickly and deliver reliable results.

1. Obtain an SSL Certificate
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol that makes it possible for your browser and a server to establish a secure connection. To put it simply, this protocol keeps the information that your users share safe, which is paramount in today’s online landscape.

Even if you’re just hearing the term for the first time, chances are a lot of the websites you use on a day-to-day basis have SSL certificates set up. If they do, you’ll see an https prefix – instead of plain old http – within their URLs, as well as a lock icon in the address field:

The extra “s” indicates that you’re accessing that particular website through a secure connection, made possible by the SSL protocol. Needless to say, customers feel much better knowing their information is secure, which enables you to build trust.

Furthermore, depending on which type of certificate you’re using, you likely had to go through a verification process to get it. This is particularly important for e-commerce sites and other websites that handle credit card information or other sensitive data.

Despite how complicated the term sounds, setting up an SSL certificate is remarkably simple. Many web hosts, including us, will enable you to obtain and set one up through cPanel. The best part is, there are plenty of free (and reputable) options available.

2. Display Trust Seals on Your Site
Trust seals are accreditations given out by entities such as McAfee or the Better Business Bureau (BBB) which indicate that a particular website meets a set of criteria. There are many different trust seals covering a wide range of certifications, including having a secure site or following good business practices.

Some seals are so recognizable that their presence alone may be enough to boost conversions, such as those issued by Verisign, PayPal, and Norton.

The process for setting up each seal varies according to the entity issuing it, and there are too many to cover in a single article. However, here are a few you may want to consider:

Secured by PayPal: This is perfect for online stores of any size.
Norton Secured: Geared towards privacy and online security, it’s ideal for enterprise solutions.
BBB accreditation: This is a highly regarded accreditation for businesses located in the U.S and Canada.

There are, of course, plenty more trust seals to choose from, but there’s no need to rush and sign up for them all. Take your time and pick those that you feel are most appropriate for your business and you’ll soon reap the benefits.

3. Use The Social Media
If you’re interested in promoting yourself or your organization online, you are probably well aware that being active on social networks is an increasingly important part of the process. Building a strong social media presence does more than just advertise your brand. When you tackle it the right way, your social activity can also enhance your reputation and encourage people to think of you as an authority in your field.

The Value Of Authority
Trust has always been an important part of business relationships and this still holds true in the modern world of e-commerce. Maintaining an online reputation as a knowledgeable and trustworthy source of information can be a powerful deciding factor when potential customers choose between you and your competitors. It’s not just vendors looking to make sales that are interested in cultivating authoritative reputations.

Being an authority will lend weight to everything you post. This is not merely a rhetorical device, either. Individuals and companies that take pains to build good online reputations have an easier time attracting a wider audience because they are linked to others by other authorities and favored by the search engines. Building an authoritative reputation is a proven strategy for expanding your reach and attracting a wider audience.

Social Media As Part Of A Wider Marketing Strategy
Although today’s social networks are tremendously powerful communications tools, they are not ideally suited for generating a reputation as an authority on their own. You need content with some real depth to it in order to demonstrate your expertise and this is not always a good fit with social sites that prefer their users to post content in bite-sized chunks.

This does not mean you shouldn’t incorporate social networks into your overall plan for promoting yourself! Social media allows you to promote the content you publish in other venues. You can use excerpts, samples, and previews to entice followers into visiting your primary site and taking a look at your content. A social media presence also makes a perfect platform for engaging in two-way conversations about your content.

Although social networks probably won’t be the native ground for your most authoritative content, you should still make an effort to craft your work in a way that lends itself to promotion via social media. Content that concentrates on making a visual impact (e.g. infographics, videos) is particularly suited to this role. Good visuals can serve as the entirety of your content or be deployed simply as adjuncts to strong text.

As noted above, your content needs to go into some depth and explore new territory in order to establish your reputation as an authority. Take the time to write content that will deliver genuine value to people who discover it through your social media promotional efforts. Include strong reference links that support your ideas and guide your audience to even more information they’ll find useful.

Finally, don’t forget to mount standard social sharing buttons on your content pages. Your entire goal is to get more people to take notice of your efforts through increased social visibility. Give your audience the tools it needs to help you achieve that goal!.

Also read: Best Social Media Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

Engaging With The Community
As noted above, social networks are all about unbiased, back-and-forth communication. This makes them uniquely suited to engaging far more directly with your audience than other venues. Embrace this feature of social media rather than shying away from it. Encourage readers to reach out to you by addressing your social profiles and do your best to answer questions in an insightful, respectful way.

Social networks give you the opportunity to interact with people who are already seen as authorities in your field, too. Take advantage of this by keeping up with the latest trends in your niche, and don’t be afraid to reach out to influential people when you have something meaningful to say. Getting a little communication flowing between yourself and your niche’s thought leaders can bring you to the attention of a much larger audience.

Ultimately, planning out your ideal social media marketing strategy will depend on your personal situation, your goals, and your resources. The general principles detailed here should serve you very well if you want to use your social activity to improve your reputation and become an authority in your field.

Also read: How Small Businesses Can Compete and Win Against Big Businesses on the Web

4. Follow Industry Standards and Best Practices
When you search a term on Google, you expect a relevant list of results to be displayed. If that doesn’t happen, you become frustrated and lose a bit of confidence in the search capabilities. When customers don’t have access to features they’re accustomed to, they lose trust and confidence in the brand. Best practices include things like: contact information, customer testimonials, on-site search performance, and accepting multiple payment methods.

5. Keep Your Website Professional
Last but not least, professionalism is critical to convincing users that you’re operating a trustworthy website. Outdated or poorly executed web design can be a huge detriment to your site’s credibility. Conversely, a clean, modern design is far more appealing:

Moreover, for your site to be considered professional, it must also be easy to use. That means making sure that each page is clearly identified, your contact information is easy to find, and every feature works as intended.

All of these small elements add up to a pleasant online experience, which is what makes them so critical.

If your site meets all – or a majority – of the criteria covered within the above pieces, then it’s probably on its way to becoming a very credible site.

6. Be consistent
Your consistency will prove the power of those behind your website and give confidence to your visitors about the strength of those behind your website. Your consistency will help people to quickly understand how to use your site without thinking, and in particular they will know where to go and where they are when they get there.

Conclusion
Credibility is crucial for any website that’s going to make it in the long run. It doesn’t matter if you’re in e-commerce, promoting a service, or running a blog – trust is essential.

The good news is, building up your website’s credibility doesn’t have to be complicated, and it’ll enable you to reap tangible rewards, such as higher conversion rates and more content shares.

Let’s recap three of the most efficient ways to enhance your website’s credibility:

Obtain an SSL certificate.
Display trust seals on your site.
Keep your website looking professional.
Use the social media

Missed anything or you have any ideas to add that can improve website reputation? Let’s get it in the comment box.

Read more: https://www.todhost.com/blog/how-to-build-your-website-trust-and-credibility/

his tutorial will review the Backup Manager of Loaded Commerce and how it works. The feature provides an automated creation and restore of backups for your website. However, note that those backups are only for the database on your website and not the files. If you are customizing any of the files of your website, we do not recommend using this option.

To access the Backup Manager feature, you need to access the administrative dashboard of your website first. Click on the Settings button on the right-side menu.

Click on the System Tools option and then Backup Manager.

The Backup Manager allows you to:

1. Create Backup
2. Restore Backup


Create Backup

Once you access the backup manager, you will be able to see a list of all available backups of your website's database. To create a new backup, simply click on the Backup button at the top.

The system will request more information about the new backup. Choose the compression for the new backup and if you would like to instantly download it on your local computer. Then hit the Backup button to proceed.

Restore Backup

To restore a backup that you have created of your website, you need to access the Backup Manager again. Click on the Restore button at the top and select a backup copy from your local computer.

Click on the Restore button and allow the time for the process to get completed successfully.

Then, you will see a successful message to confirm that the restore is completed.

Read more: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/989/Loaded-commerce-backup-and-restore-tutorial.html

To convert a customer and build customer loyalty, your site should provide a flawless experience. Any pain points or inconvenience runs the risk of losing a customer as they usually will abandon their purchase. To overcome this, we have identified the 10 points of vigilance to remove all obstacles in the customer's buying process. From display times to transaction emails, discover the errors you need to avoid.

1. An excessively long response time

Waiting time is the number 1 priority for customer relations in all sectors. On the phone, at the checkouts, in the fitting rooms... and on the web. In terms of the Internet, the most critical aspect and problem lies in the time it takes a page to fully load. If a page takes more than 3 seconds, more than half of Internet users are likely to leave the site. A very selective requirement that has a significant impact on mobile site referencing. Since July 2018, Google has announced that it will take this data into account when calculating its algorithms

Read more: https://www.todhost.com/blog/10-online-retailing-mistakes-that-can-lead-to-customer-loss.html

Take a look at this scenario put forward by a client and share your view:

Google changes my title to something more preferred

I have had a preferred title: Website Design in Ghana - Domain Name"

But when I use it, Google puts my domain name first before the title like this "Domain Name Website Design in Ghana".

Then I rewrote it to something like "Website Design: Website Design in Ghana - Domain Name" just to be able to force the domain name to come last and Google now changed it to:

"Website Design in Ghana - Domain Name" which is what I have always preferred.

Do I need to alter anything now that Google have given me the preferred title?

Link building is an essential discipline in SEO work. It is among the most important factors for achieving successful rankings in Google’s search results. Typically you expend a lot of resources on creating backlinks to your website, so you obviously want to get the full value for your link building efforts.

It is important to know technical SEO mistakes may be the reason why you are not getting the full value from your backlinks. We explain them here, along with tips for monitoring your links.

There are many different ways to get backlinks to your website. Google consider you to be cheating unless the link shows up by itself because you have great content that is worth linking to.

Getting links take resources – so monitor your backlinks

Regardless of how you get your links, whether you pay for your links, do outreach, write posts as a guest blogger, or simply publish good content worth linking to, there is little doubt that it takes resources.

A link has great value, because it can increase your rankings in Google’s organic search results – and it takes time, effort, and sometimes money to get them. Therefore, you should always make sure you get the most out of them.

You can either do it manually, or you can choose a monitoring tool that can do the work for you automatically. The latter solution is easier, but no matter what, it makes sense to educate yourself on the factors that can influence the value of a link.

Technical SEO that can affect link value

If you want the full value from backlinks pointing to your website, it is important that nothing is blocking the transfer of the value. First of all, this requires that the website linking to you has been configured properly. The ultimate to-do for your own SEO is that you are on top of the technical things as well.

Below, you will see which factors you must be particularly aware of to ensure you are getting the full benefits from your links.

Indexing status

The first thing you should do when you receive a link is to check if the URL linking to your domain has been indexed. If it hasn’t been indexed, the link has no value. There can be several reasons for this – typically, Google has not yet come across the specific subpage with the link. In that case, you just have to wait for it to be indexed.

However, more serious errors may be the cause for the domain not yet being indexed. For instance, the page could be set to noindex, or the robots.txt file may not be allowing Google to crawl the site.

404 and redirects

A redirect is a rerouting from one URL to another. They are often used when a homepage is relaunched, or if a subpage is removed and replaced with another one with a different URL.

However, creating redirects is not just done for the sake of the user. If you have links pointing to a 404 page, the value transferred by the link will be lost. This is because the dead page is not redirected to a new URL. In practical terms, you risk giving up important link juice, of you have incoming links from external domains pointing to dead pages.

Typically, we distinguish between two types of redirects – 301 redirect and 302 redirect. 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that tells the browser and Google that the specific URL has moved permanently to a different web address. A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect for when you want to redirect a specific URL to a different subpage on your website for a period of time.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the actual text you are clicking on when following a link. It is often meant to give users an indication of the topic of the destination website they get to by clicking on the link. At the same time, it helps give Google an indication of the topic of the URL.

It is important that there are no changes made to the anchor text linking to your website. If it contains a search term you want Google to index the URL by, it is important that the search term stays in the anchor text.

Rel attributes

The rel attribute enables you to send a signal to Google about the relationship to the linked content. This may influence how much link value is transferred – and if any is transferred at all.

Nofollow: This value is an indication to Google that you can’t guarantee the content on the homepage linked to, so they should not pass on any link value.

Sponsored content: With this value, you are signaling to Google that the link is sponsored. This is often used for paid advertising, affiliate links, or advertorials.

User-generated content: This value enables you to signal to Google that there is a link not created by you, but rather a user has created it. It is typically used in comment fields and in forums.

Keep track of your links

If you want to make sure you get the full value from your links, you may want to use a tool that monitors them automatically. Several technical factors can influence the value of your, and it may be difficult to keep track of them manually.

There are several tools you can use to monitor your links. Below is a brief introduction to the most popular ones on the market:

Linkody: Linkody is a fairly basic tool that enables you to monitor if your backlinks are indexed. Available from $13.90 a month.
Linkcheetah: Linkcheetah is a little more advanced. Here, you can monitor indexing, redirects, and HTML headers. Available from $49 a month.
SE Ranking: SE Ranking monitors HTML headers and enables manual correction of the price for a link and updating link status. Available from $39 a month.
Monitor Backlinks: Monitor Backlinks is a simple tool that enables you to monitor HTML headers and indexing status. Available from $89 a month.
LinkOkay: An advanced tool that monitors HTML headers, indexing status, and enables manual status updates for incoming links. Available from $0 a month.
Traxr: Traxr is a new Backlink Monitoring tool with more features than the other tools. Here you are able to monitor HTML headers, response headers, redirects, rendering, canonical tags, anchor text changes, and much more. Available from $27 a month. There is a free 7-day trial, where you can track all the links you want. You have the option of doing manual checks yourself, and at the same time, you can track how much you are paying for your links by entering a price for the paid link you are tracking.

This tutorial covers how to enable the WordPress website Maintenance mode. This is usually necessary when you undertake a major maintenance of your WordPress website such updating WordPress to a later version.

How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

In case you wish to make a more significant update on your WordPress site, you might have to put it into maintenance mode. This mode is essentially a state where a website is not available for a specific period.

You might be asking, “What is this maintenance mode, and how do I use it?” We are stepping up with some help. In this post, we will cover everything in regards to the maintenance mode in WordPress. Additionally, we will show you how to edit the default message about the maintenance mode and make it appealing to visitors.

What you will find in this guide:

What Exactly is WordPress Maintenance Mode?
When Should I Set the Maintenance Mode?
What are the Side Effects of WordPress Maintenance Mode to the Site Visitors?
Methods to Put WordPress into Maintenance Mode
General
Design
Modules
Manage Bot
GDPR
Method 1: WordPress Maintenance Function
Method 2: Usе a Code Snippet
Method 3: Using the .htaccess File
Method 4: Using a WordPress Plugin
How to get a WordPress Site out of Maintenance Mode
The .maintenance File Solution
Maintenance Mode Plugin Solution
How to Prevent your Site from Getting stuck in WordPress Maintenance Mode
Final Thoughts

What Exactly is WordPress Maintenance Mode?

The maintenance mode in WordPress is an applied status that is to inform our site visitors about the current maintenance state of our website. Basically, it’s a page or a message that works as a substitute for the actual WordPress site. On that particular page, we may also add an estimation of when the site will be available again.

During the maintenance process, WordPress is going to use the wp_maintenance function, meanwhile creating a .maintenance file with the maintenance message inside. After the procedure is done, WordPress automatically deletes the .maintenance file. Then, the site should be working as usual.
When Should I Set the Maintenance Mode?

First and foremost - we do not have to enable the maintenance mode each time we have to perform changes to our WordPress site. Such small changes include updating pieces of content, fixing minor bugs, or playing around with the color schemes.

With that in mind, as the website grows bigger, it is natural that the changes also become larger, and thus the need for more time to make them. You might have to set maintenance mode when:

Changing the theme of a WordPress site;
Major Redesign;
Adding features;
Setting up additional services;
Fixing important security bugs;
Fixing customer data-related site issues.

All those would generally take an extensive period of time, which would prevent your visitors from viewing the site as intended.

The third reason for using WordPress maintenance mode relates to new websites rather than existing ones. It’s a ‘coming soon’ page, and it helps you build up some hype for your yet-to-launch site.

WordPress maintenance mode is a WordPress core feature that’s enabled when you update the version of WordPress or while updating plugins and themes. The CMS displays a message across your website that lets visitors know you’re working on something. This way, you can perform updates without forcing them to use a semi-broken site.

his post explains how to manually get out of the unwanted WordPress maintenance mode in case your site gets stuck in it. You might be wondering what it is and why it’s happening.

We will cover:

What Causes WordPress Maintenance Mode Issues?
Possibility 1: The .maintenance File Still Exists in the Site's Root Folder
How to Delete the .maintenance File in cPanel
How to Delete the .maintenance File via FileZilla
How to Resolve the .maintenance Issue via SSH
Possibility 2: There is a Theme or Plugin that has not Updated Correctly
Theme and Plugin Solutions to Fix WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode
Prevent Future WordPress Maintenance Mode Issues
Ensure Plugins/Themes are Compatible
Avoid Updating all Plugins at Once.


What Causes WordPress Maintenance Mode Issues?

Anytime you update your plugins and themes, WordPress maintenance mode would kick in, displaying a message that says your site is temporarily unavailable. The updates take only a few seconds and are too brief to be noticed. However, sometimes, the process would get interrupted. This hiccup could come from errors in server connection, or when a browser or a page was closed while the update was going on. Whatever the case is, the solutions for this issue are two.
Possibility 1: The .maintenance File Still Exists in the Site's Root Folder

Typically, this would be the main reason in case the maintenance mode is stuck. What you need to do is access your server via FTP software like FileZilla, or by using the File Manager in your cPanel (cPanel → File Manager).
How to Delete the .maintenance File in cPanel

cPanel is not the only existing control panel, but it’s probably the most popular one. If you are one of our clients, you already know that we are one of the hosting providers that use cPanel. To delete the .maintenance file in cPanel, follow these steps:

Log into your cPanel and scroll down to find File Manager. By default, many file managers hide all files that have a dot prefix, thus you have to make sure that those hidden files are showing, so you can find the .maintenance file. Go to Settings and check the box Show Hidden Files (dotfiles):
In File Manager, you need to select Web Root (public_html). If working on an addon domain, the folder's name would be the same as the addon domain name.
Open public_html. Doing it would take you directly to the location of your .maintenance file;
Find it, delete it, and then refresh your browser with your WordPress site open to see if the message is still there;
In case the pop-up doesn't appear when you click on File Manager, and if you don't see dot files in your public_html directory, you have to go back to cPanel, scroll down to the bottom, and then click Reset All Interface Settings;
Refresh the page and try again. Clear the cache of your browser if it still doesn’t work.


How to Delete the .maintenance File via FileZilla

An FTP Client is a file manager that you can use on your local device. By default, it comes with more features than the file managers that are available through hosts. we recommends using FileZilla, as does WordPress. To delete the .maintenance file with FileZilla, follow these steps:

After you have the FileZilla installer, open it and go to File → Site Manager;
You will need to know your FTP details. Typically, it would be the username and password that you use to access your website’s file manager, but if you are not sure, ask your host;
Click on New Site. Make sure you select the General tab and configure the following settings:

Host – Enter your domain (e.g., example.com) Port – Leave it blank;
Protocol – FTP (File Transfer Protocol);
Encryption – Only use plain FTP;
Login Type – Normal;
User – FTP username from the host;
Password – FTP password from the host;

Click over to the Transfer Settings tab. Tick the box that says Limit Number of Simultaneous Connections, and enter 8 as the Maximum Number of Connections. This keeps the server from blocking your IP address, especially if you’re on a shared hosting server;
Click Connect. If you see folders named wp-content and wp-admin, you’re in the right place. If not, double click your root directory folder. This typically ispublic_html, but ask your host if you’re not sure;
If you do not see any files with a dot prefix, click Server, and select Force Showing Hidden Files. Find the .maintenance file, delete it, and then click the Refresh the File and Folder Lists button, and refresh your browser to check your site. Clear your cache and check again if you’re having issues.


How to Resolve the .maintenance Issue via SSH

To Rename the .maintenance file via SSH:

Use the following line:

cd public_html

this way you go into the root directory of the primary domain - if it is an addon, simply check this from the Addon Domain tab in the cPanel and replace public_html with the directory shown there. It is usually named after the domain itself - for instance: cd example.com
Next, use the following line:

ls -la

it lists all the files and folders with the current directory - this also lists hidden files (files that have a dot prefix before them) mv .maintenance .maintenance-disable - renames the maintenance file so that the message is no longer shown in the browser.

To disable plugins/themes via SSH:

Enter the following line:

cd wp-content

once inside the public_html, or the root directory of the problematic domain, you go within the wp-content folder, which holds WordPress’s most valuable assets such as plugins, themes, images, videos, etc.
The next line is:

mv plugins plugins-disable

this renames the directory that keeps the plugins, so they are no longer usable by WordPress, thus allowing you to access your website normally.
Next, we input:

mv themes themes-disable

it renames the themes directory so that they would no longer be usable by WordPress (this might also show a blank page, however, it will still allow us to access the administrative area of our website), thus allowing you to access your website normally.

Redis and object caching will exponentially speed up your WordPress page load time with every subsequent visit.

In this guide, we will cover how to configure Redis as a cache for WordPress to lessen all redundant and time-consuming database queries that are used for rendering a WordPress page. The result of this will be a WordPress site that is exceptionally faster, uses much fewer database resources, in addition to providing a tunable and persistent cache. Keep in mind that the guide applies to CentOS 6 and cPanel.

What is covered in this post:

How Does Caching Work?
What Exactly is Redis?
Benefits of Redis
Installing Redis, PHP-Redis, and WordPress
Prerequisites
Install Redis
Configure Redis
Install PHP-REDIS
Configure WordPress Caching
Restart Redis and Apache via SSH
Verify the Setup

How Does Caching Work?

Whenever a web page is cached, the elements of that particular page such as images, stylesheets, and other content, are loaded once, and then stored in what we call a “cache.” The cache memorizes everything that was loaded, creates a static version of it, and then can serve that version much faster the next time the page loads. The result is a much faster page load time and fewer server resources being used.

Every time we access a WordPress page, a query is being executed to the WordPress database to fetch the page’s content. By using Redis caching, the results of this query are stored into the Redis-managed block. Upon additional requests of the same page, the data will be retrieved from the Redis cache, eliminating the need for execution of the MySQL query, which could be essential even if we have only a few visitors on our WordPress site. Retrieving the data via Redis directly from the memory can make our page load speed blazing fast.

The solution above is most beneficial for WordPress sites with a large number of simultaneous requests as reducing the number of concurrent queries dramatically improves the performance, provides better utilization to the server and eliminates the MySQL bottleneck. This way, the site can handle more traffic without the need for more powerful hardware.

Also, caching with Redis eliminates any need for flushing the cache whenever we publish new content manually. In case we edit a page, or we post new content to our WordPress site, the Redis cache for the posted content would be invalidated to avoid “dirty” cache. The content will be updated after the next page load.

What Exactly is Redis?

Redis is an open source advanced key-value cache store. It can operate as both cache and an in-memory store. Usually, Redis is referred to as a data structure server, and it’s known for having outstanding performance as it works with an in-memory dataset. Although similar results can be witnessed with some other cache softwares like Memcached, Redis is one of the best choices. It’s not too hard to set up and use. Additionally, we are going to cover how to set up Redis on CentOS 6 server with cPanel, how to set up php-redis, as well as perform the needed configuration settings on our WordPress installation and boost its performance exponentially.
Benefits of Redis

Websites that are highly dynamic and cannot make good use of page caching are a good target for the persistent object caching* option that is Redis. Generally, Redis would not help the load time of static blogs, news websites, and informational business websites, unless those sites use page caching poorly. However, Redis offers a great deal of support for developing efficient caching mechanisms. It takes just a couple of minutes to implement a cache mechanism and get it working with the chosen application. The outcome we get is a high-performing cache system. With it, you can have huge keys and values of objects.

*Object caching - involves storing database queries. When enabled on a WordPress site, it helps in speeding up PHP execution times, reduces the load on the database, in addition to delivering content to the site's visitors faster.

WordPress also has object caching built-in with the WP_Object_Cache class.

While on a WordPress context, we can use Redis to store the values generated by the native object cache of WordPress. We can do that in a persistent manner so that all cached objects would be reused between page loads.

Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many website designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits and focus these 9 main points that are sure to give you good success:

• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Heading tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks

Keywords

Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site, this formula is:

Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density. Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.

Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Web Design", I want my site to include the words "Web Design" as many times as possible. However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in New Orleans, I would include "New Orleans web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.

Tips to Help You Choose the right keywords

Think like a customer

Identify your target audience and put yourself into the shoes of a customer when you create your initial list of keywords. Ask yourself, 'If I wanted to find one of these products or services, what would I type into Google?' You can also consult others, such as friends, family members, or even current customers to get their opinion on phrases they would use when searching for your products and services.

Study the competition

Make a list of your main competitors and go to their websites to see what keywords they are targeting. Read their content and view their metatags to help identify the keywords they are targeting. Looking at your competitor's keywords will not only help you see what you could be forgetting, but also help broaden your list of ideas.

Understand long tail keywords

Long tail keywords are a combination of three or more words or phrases. While long tail keywords tend to boast lower search volumes, they generally attract more relevant traffic, are typically less competitive, and easier to rank well on. Choose long tail keywords that help to specify your product or service.

Use keyword research tools

If you are using Google Ads you can use their keyword tool to research your potential target keywords. With this tools and others like SEMRUSH and Raventools, you can gather data on keyword volume and trends, keyword competition, similar keywords and more.

Analyze the results

After choosing your keywords don't forget to monitor them and analyze the results. There are often trending keywords or phrases, along with new keywords your competitors may be using.

Don't forget to utilize your keywords wherever possible! Insert your keywords into blog posts, social media posts, metatags and your website's content. The more you use keywords within your content, the easier it will be for your target audience to find you.

Many thanks. Good you found this useful

Dmayor7:
This is a great tutorial for all

Kudos

todhost:
We have been into SEO for a while but have never faced the challenge of having an internal page competing with our homepage. For the first time, we had a blog post appearing in the search engines and replacing our homepage.

We thought it will eventually go but no, its just slowing down our ranking even though our Moz rank is on the rise.

We finally took down the page today and redirected it to our homepage using a 301 redirect in htaccess.

Do you think we were right?

This issue had been fixed simply by changing the page title to be more unique. Not really focusing on the keywords for which we wanted to rank the homepage. And site ranking is doing better days later.

Thanks for your suggestions. And you are right about that. The approach we have used is to edit the title to something not directly containing exact keywords of our homepage. We have changed the title from "A Review of Web Hosting in Nigeria" which directly outranked our homepage for the keyword "web hosting in Nigeria" and changed it to "A Review of Nigeria's Top Web Hosting Service Providers" Monitoring to see how that affect results overtime.

WuzzyTech:
Hello send some tier 1 backlink and social signals to your homepage and it will rank above everything else!

What is the backlink profile of that page you redirected?

Thanks for your suggestions. And you are right about that. The approach we have used is to edit the title to something not directly containing exact keywords of our homepage. We have changed the title from "A Review of Web Hosting in Nigeria" which directly outranked our homepage for the keyword "web hosting in Nigeria" and changed it to "A Review of Nigeria's Top Web Hosting Service Providers" Monitoring to see how that affect results overtime.

Sanchez01:
You weren't wrong. What took place was keyword cannibalization. You missed it the moment you created a blog post on the keyword as your homepage.

If you've been into SEO but had issues with keyword cannibalization, then it goes on to show that you haven't been deep in it. That said, as much as possible, you could do keyword synonyms rather than direct keywords against your homepage. Google bots still put keyword synonyms on the same level as the main but always leave it secondary.

We have been into SEO for a while but have never faced the challenge of having an internal page competing with our homepage. For the first time, we had a blog post appearing in the search engines and replacing our homepage.

We thought it will eventually go but no, its just slowing down our ranking even though our Moz rank is on the rise.

We finally took down the page today and redirected it to our homepage using a 301 redirect in htaccess.

Do you think we were right?

The power and functionality of your WordPress website lie in its plugins. Plugins can do so much for your small business website. You can use them to make your WordPress site load faster, make your content shareable, collect visitor email addresses for your marketing list, and do better in search results. The fortunate and good side is that many of the best WordPress plugins that can upgrade your website and your business blog are free.

It’s important to make sure the plugins you choose are reputable and secure. Unfortunately, people can, and do exploit plugins. Usually, this involves malicious scripts injected into plugins with security gaps. This is the focus of this post aimed at helping you identify vulnerable plugins and how to fix the security problems that could emanate from such vulnerability.



Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky says the possibilities include site takeover, spyware installation, and cryptocurrency mining.

Read full blog post: https://www.todhost.com/blog/how-to-detect-a-vulnerable-wordpress-plugin.html

How to Add new Product on your WooCommerce Store


In building your Store, you will reach a point when you will need to add some products. Actually, this should be one of the major activities in your checklist after you perform the basic configuration of your store or after you implement some design. In this section, we will provide you with more information on how to add products to your Store.


To complete this tutorial, you will need to:

Step 1: Add a New Product
Step 2: Configure the Product Data
Step 3: Add a Product Short Description




Step 1 Add a New Product

For your convenience and for the ease of Store management WooCommerce provides you with a separate link in your admin menu called Products. In order to access it you will need to simply login into your Wordpress admin area and navigate to Products>Products.



On the next page, you will see a conveniently structured table view for all of the currently added products on your Online Store. Of course, if you are accessing that location for your first time, most probably it will be empty as there will be no products added to your Online Store.



In order to add a new product, you will need to simply click on the Add Product button located at the top of the page.

This action will send you to the Add New Product page where you will be able to configure all of the product options which we will review in the second step of this tutorial.




Step 2 Configure the Product Data

Most probably the interface for adding a new product will look familiar to you and this is because it is indeed similar to the one used for adding posts in Wordpress. All of the options usually used for adding posts are also available here and you should be able to use those freely.

The available options on that page are separated into few sections. The main section is related to the name of the product and of course some content which can be inserted in the large content box bellow the name of the product and used as the long description text displayed on the dedicated product page.

The next section of options is called Product Data and there you will be able to configure quite a lot of additional options for your product. The options are stored in a form of vertical tabs. By default, you will be presented with the option to make your product Virtual or Downloadable due to the presentation of these options at the top of the section.




In the General tab you will be able to find the following settings:


SKU – This is simply unique identifier which will help you to track easily your product in the products management sessions (moved to inventory tab since ver.2.6.0 )
Regular Price – The regular price of the product
Sale Price – The price when the product is marked as Sale



When you are done with these simple settings you can move forward to the next tab called Inventory. There you will be able to find few options related to the inventory of the product you are adding:



Manage Stock – Here you can enable the stock management for this product. Keep in mind that this will bring some additional option you will need for the Stock management
Stock Status – The status of the stock for this product
Sold Individually – This will allow you to restrict your users to purchase a single product at a time



The next tab you should move forward with is called Shipping and here you should be able to define the Weight, Dimensions and of course the Shipping class for this product. The options are relatively simple and you should be able to configure them intuitively.


Once you are done with these settings you can click on the next tab called Linked Products. These type of products which can be grouped on Sale. The available options you can configure on this tab are:



Up-Sells – The actual products which can be a subject of Up-Sell along with this product
Cross-Sells – The products which can be a subject of Cross-Sell along with this product
Grouping – Here you can choose among the grouped products so you can make this product part of another group of products



The next tab with settings is called Attributes and as the name suggests here you will be able to add some Attributes to the product.



The last tab from this section is called Advanced and there you will be able to configure some additional options about this product.



Purchase Note – Any notes you would like to send to the customer right after purchase
Menu Order – Here you will be able to set a custom ordering position for this product
Enable Reviews – You can enable or disable the review about this product



Once you are done with this final tab you can move forward to the next section of options.



How to Backup Your WordPress Website Automaticaly Using Backup Plugins


Step 3 Add a Product Short Description sections


The final section of the settings is called Product Short Description and there you will be able to input some short description about your product.



Once you are done with all these sections of options you should scroll up to the top of the page and click on the Publish button so the new product can be published immediately.

Of course in the sidebar you will find also few smaller sections which can be used for adding the product to certain category, adding some tags to the product, setting featured image and of course making a product gallery.



In fact, the only option to upload images for your product is to create a gallery via that last section in the Sidebar.

When you publish your product you will have the option to review it right away and you will notice how even with the default Wordpress theme the product page looks incredibly.

That's it on how to add products to a WooCommerce store.

Competitor intelligence gathering has become a well established business practice necessary for survival in the densely populated business environment. The internet today has over 1.5billion websites struggling for traffic and visibility on the search engines. Doing well will depend on how you react to the environment and that depends on the amount of information about competitors and the entire environment you can gather.

To many, competitive intelligence is synonymous with a strong foundation for strategic business planning. Some business analysts call it spying on the competition. Now, it is important to say this:

Unless you collect and review at least some information about your competitors, you will most likely fall their prey eventually.

Let’s face it; unless you are selling a gimmick no one has ever heard before, someone else is going after the same market. This means that even if your product is superior today, a competitor might come along that will do it better and push you to the sidelines.

So, continuous improvement is important even for star products. That improvement strongly depends on inputs from market reaserch. Well, after you have read this guide which we have put together from our research teams' brains and compiled as a list of competitive intelligence tools that will help you conduct advanced market research, it should be really a difficult task for any competitor to be abe to push you aside.

Check the full article on our blog

The Display Options in WooCommerce are that set of option you will need in order to configure the proper display of components across the default WooCommerce pages and also the dimensions for the images of your Store. In this tutorial, we will provide you with more information on how these settings should be configured in your store.

To configure the Display Options, you need to complete the following steps:

Step 1: Access the Display Options page
Step 2: Configure the Shop & Product page Settings

Read full post at https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/894/Configuring-the-Display-Options-in-WooCommerce.html

Maintenance and stability are two of very important aspects of website not often talked about until there is a disaster. They are two concepts that are often get brushed aside especially by regular website owners whose websites had been designed by a third party, a freelancer or by someone who was contracted to do so. But dealing with website security and been assured that a website is secure can be exciting and comforting.

Of course, it’s thrilling to experience huge traffic spikes when your latest blog post goes viral. It’s also thrilling—and not in a good way—when your site crashes because you ignored some base-level maintenance tasks.

It’s often during those thrilling-in-a-bad-way times that we look at maintenance and stability with fresh eyes. Suddenly, these concepts look a lot more attractive.

Today’s article is all about encouraging you to give website maintenance and stability the attention it deserves—by regularly following the best practices that create a stable, secure website. When things are stable, you can enjoy the thrill of a traffic spike—without the nagging worry that your site can’t quite support it.

https://www.todhost.com/blog/a-practical-guide-to-secure-and-maintain-your-website.html

There are few options you will need to configure for your products when you are performing the initial configuration of your Online Store and in the next few lines of this tutorial we will show you how to do that precisely.

The Product Options page is the place where you can configure all you need for the products of your Online Store. In order to access that page you will need to login into the admin area of your website and then navigate to WooCommerce>Settings>Products.

On the next page called General Options you will find two relatively simple sections of settings. The first one called Measurements is used for the measuring of your products. Here you can configure the following two options:

Weight Unit - The unit which will be used for measuring the weight of a product
Dimensions Unit - The unit which will be used for measuring the dimensions of the unit


Read full post: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/892/How-to-Configure-Product-Options-in-WooCommerce.html

Every online Store yours will need some additional configuration before you can start selling your products. The general Options provided by WooCommerce will enable you to configure the basic options for your Store along with the Currency options and in the next few lines of this tutorial we will show you how exactly you should handle this task.


To complete this, you will have to follow these steps:

Step 1: Configure the General Options
Step 2: Configure the Currency Options

Read full post: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/891/How-to-Configure-the-General-Options-in-WooCommerce.html

One thing that is truly terrifying for any website owner, is the thought of seeing all of your work altered or entirely wiped out by a nefarious hacker. It can be truly very frustrating to be the victim of a website hack and that is why no effort should be spared to maintain the security of your website.

Quite often, we see data breaches and hacks in the news all the time. And when customers experience a breach, they wonder and ask us, why would someone come after my small business website? But hacks don’t just happen to the big guys. One report found that small businesses were the victims of 43% of all data breaches.

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/how-to-protect-your-website-from-hackers.html

Yes we can! What specific help would you require?

zoeA:
Can you help? WhatsApp 08179176060

Improving your website ranking on search engines particularly the Google Search Engine Result Pages should be a priority for every website owner. Everyone wonders and makes efforts on how to do this and website owners have been plagued by this challenge ever since the days of Lycos and AltaVista.

The real secrets to good performance in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains with Google. However, based on clues available from the Google Webmaster Guidelines and experience, we can introduce you to a few SEO basics you might be overlooking, and that should be enough to provide your site’s search engine performance with a nice boost.

Source: https://www.todhost.com/blog/6-simple-seo-steps-that-will-improve-your-rankings.html