J&M Group WordPress Blog

WordPress Freelance Web Designers.

mcoffey@jmgroup.net · February 7, 2020 ·

The Small Business Solution

It can be challenging to decide whether to hire a web design agency or a WordPress freelance web designer. For most small businesses, a website project is a large undertaking, requiring a significant investment of both money and time.

What is web development? It is a complicated process consisting of several stages. Each is important: web design, web development, content creation, search engine optimization, and digital marketing.

There are several advantages to hiring a freelancer to complete your project. Today is a good example of what I mean! “I’m not sure you will really want to talk to me,” said Karen, my newest client, apologetically … at 8:30 am.

“Now my second partner has quit on me, so we will have to start out once again with designing the website, plus get another new domain. I hope you can help me!”

This was now web design #3 in two weeks. But who’s counting?

Flexibility

Along with setting their own rates, freelancers can set their own schedules. This can positively impact the timeline of the project.

When working with individuals, they may be able to devote all their time to your project to get the work done faster, whereas an agency will be managing multiple projects with different timelines.

Depending on the agency or freelancer, you may experience a more hands-on approach with a freelancer. Since he or she is your sole contact on the project, there can be a more personal approach.

The Generalist

Freelancers speak your language. There are aspects of being a generalist that give us advantages over specialists. The Power Of A Generalist

Generalists are always learning new things. This means there’s a greater chance we have dabbled in your specialty and can understand what you do and what is required for your job. At the same time, we know we’re not the experts — you are.

The BIG Picture

We look at the big picture of how different people and pieces fit together and where we fit. This makes us great people to work with!

So think of it this way in the animal kingdom.

Each creature resides on a species scale of generalists to specialists. The koala bear, a specialist, can only survive on an extremely limited set of conditions: diet (eucalyptus), climate (warm), environment (trees).

Mice, the generalists, on the other hand, can survive just about anywhere. They can withstand heat and cold, eat your organic breakfast cereal or seeds and berries foraged in the wild.

We freelancers are mice and for the first time proud of it!

Contact Marcia Coffey at 561-906-3436 or fill out our Getting Started form.

DIY WordPress Maintenance

marciacatlin · January 21, 2020 ·

So you’re considering handling the upkeep of your website all by yourself? That’s wonderful, even brave. For DIY WordPress maintenance, you need to know those tasks that ensure your website investment provides a healthy ROI.

Start with regular backups! But you do need to know those things required to ensure your website investment continues to provide a return.

Here are the things that need to be monitored 24/7, daily, weekly and monthly.

24/7 Monitoring

Tasks in this category can be critical to your website’s health. Failure to fix these issues could lead to costly repairs or lost visitors and sales.

Choosing a good host is crucial. But no matter who you choose, your website could still go down from time to time.

You can use a service like Uptime Robot which will check your website (up to every 5 minutes on the free plan, or every minute on a paid plan) to make sure it is online.

Good SECURITY Saves Websites

You need to have suitable security protection on your WordPress website. To get started with a free installation, you can install a plugin such as
WordFence or iThemes Security. These both have quick start guides to help you get setup.

The most important effort you can make for the health of your website is to keep regular backups in place. You will want to have daily backups of your website.

If your website is hacked, gets a virus, or a software update causes an issue, you can restore a backup copy of your website and having things working again in no time.

Your host may provide daily backups for you, which is great but they aren’t always reliable. It is always smart to have two forms of backup.

Weekly Tasks

While it can be annoying to take these tasks on each week (as they are less automated), skipping them can lead to bigger headaches.

Plugin Updates

Just like any piece of software, third party plugins are regularly updated for both functionality and security purposes. It’s important (especially for security reasons) to keep your plugins updated.

Just like any piece of software, your website can be vulnerable to website hackers or viruses that seek to use your resources for their own benefit. This can often be things like redirecting your traffic to their site, placing ads on your site, or even infecting visitors with a virus if they visit your site.

Check For Plugin Redundancies

Another tip I have for you is less about protecting your site but more about making sure that everything is cleaned up and running smoothly. It’s so easy to jump into your site and add multiple plugins that do the same thing.

To avoid ending up with 30 plugins and half of them being duplicates, I recommend taking a look over what you have installed and what you’re actually using every couple of months.

SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate is crucial for your website visitors security as well as your rankings. This means if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, Google will display a ‘Not Secure’ in the URL bar.

The SSL ensures that the information transmitted over your website (like customer details from a form, payment information, or login information) is encrypted.

While these certificates are free (from Let’s Encrypt or from your website host), they do have to be renewed often and updates to your website could affect their validity.

What Happens to A WordPress Site if You Don’t Maintain It?

Don’t Leave BACKUPS To Chance

These are mission critical! To ensure the health of your website you need to keep regular backups in place. You’ll want to have daily backups of your website (though some sites with lots of traffic, or eCommerce stores will want to do this more frequently).

If your website is hacked, gets a virus, or a software update causes an issue,
you can restore a backup copy of your website and having things working again in no time.

Your host may provide daily backups for you, which is great, but they aren’t always reliable. In fact, I don’t recommend having one form of backup no matter what it is.

Check out our WordPress Maintenance Service and comprehensive plans. Services include automated monthly security scans, daily security monitoring, plugin & theme updates, secure cloud backups, client reports, free SSL certificates, and SEO ranking.

Versatile New Navigation Pro Theme

marciacatlin · January 19, 2020 ·

We are excited to rave about the new versatile Navigation Pro theme by StudioPress. Navigation is their first theme to make building pages even easier, by delivering theme-specific sections and layouts via Atomic Blocks.

Navigation Pro cuts through the haze with bright colors, bold images and versatile layouts to steer your site to success.

Launch fast with starter packs for Travel, Cuisine, Fitness, and Law, or use the included custom block sections to build pages that capture attention and turn visitors into customers.

Block Editor Emphasis. Modular Based Approach.

Of course, as you would expect from a modern Genesis theme, the theme is responsive and AMP-enabled for better mobile performance.

Page Builders vs. Gutenberg?

The biggest difference is that Gutenberg is a default WordPress editor and comes built-in with WordPress.

On the other hand, page builder plugins are created and supported by third-party developers. The WordPress.org team does not call Gutenberg a page builder.

Layouts

The theme comes with four included layout packs. The demo shows examples of how the theme lends itself to businesses like:

Travel
Food
Law
Fitness, Health, and Wellness

The theme also works very well for:

Authors
Professional Services (like accountants)
Consultants
Real Estate Agents
and more

See the demo here ->
https://demo.studiopress.com/navigation/

Ready to get started with your new website? Call Marcia Coffey at 561.90.3436 or email her.

Is Your Website Ready for the New Year?

marciacatlin · December 20, 2019 ·

Is your website ready for the new year? If you look at websites from five years ago, there’s a big difference in the look, layout, and design. Gone are the flashy banners, tons of tabs and beveled buttons.

They’ve been replaced by simple designs, bold colors, and in-your-face visuals.

New, state-of-the-art websites are mobile-friendly, fast, modern, easy-to-use, with SSL certificates and video.

Here are 7 signs you know it’s time for a redesign:

You have a high bounce rate.
That means a percentage of people that come to your site only visit the first page they land on. A fresh redesign can help convince readers to stick around longer.

Your website no longer aligns with your current brand.
Brands evolve over time, but has your website evolved along with yours?

When visitors come to your site, the first impressions they’ll have can often be the difference in earning a potential customer or yet another bounce. Make sure you’re remembered for having a well-designed site that aligns with your message and brand. If not, it might be time for a new one.

Is my site mobile-friendly?
How your website appears on a smartphone or tablet is very important in today’s increasingly mobile world. Mobile website traffic makes up more than half of web visits around the globe,

More than 75% of Americans own a smartphone, which means that your site needs to be easy to view and navigate on a screen that is less than five inches long. A mobile-friendly website makes it possible for your customers to find and connect with you no matter where they are.

You haven’t updated your site in more than 3 years.
There have been many advancements even in the past 3 years. Is your site SSL secured or mobile-friendly, for example?

You’re not getting enough leads or conversions from your site.
If your site isn’t producing the amount of the leads that you need it to, it’s time for an upgrade. All the reasons on this list can contribute to your site not generating enough leads. If more than one problem looks familiar, it’s time to reconsider your design.

You aren’t using inbound marketing
Just because a company has a website, doesn’t mean that that website is optimized for inbound.

A true inbound site will have content that attracts visitors, with multiple lead conversion opportunities throughout the site that assist the lead nurturing process. If your site is just up to help provide information, you can be doing much more to help your marketing efforts.

Is my site secure?
Site security is important for several reasons. First, your site must be secure to protect your visitors.

Secondly, your site’s security is directly related to your business’ reputation. Protect the exchange of information between your site and your visitors, and you will earn their trust. Without a secure site, you’re setting your business up for hacking, downtime, and embarrassment.

Safe to say, if it’s been a while since you’ve updated your site, there’s a lot you can do to make improvements.

Don’t drop the ball this New Year’s! Start 2020 with an expertly built and managed website.

Contact Marcia to get started.

Do You Have a Hacked Website? It’s costly.

marciacatlin · December 6, 2019 ·

hacked websites — Did you know? 30,000 websites are infected with some type of malware daily!

For many of you keeping your WordPress site secure is not a top priority. Small business owners often think their site is just not big enough to be a threat from hackers. But it is easier than you think to have a hacked website.

But, hackers typically don’t care how big or small your business is. There is always money to be made from selling personal information!

As a result of the theft of customer information, the damage to your company’s reputation could also mean the loss of future income, as you will need to invest extra money to rebuild your reputation and restore customer confidence.

The Cost of A Hacked Website

WordPress is known for being one of the most user-friendly content management systems for websites. It is also a popular target for hackers and spammers. Hackers don’t spend time trying to hack platforms that no one uses – right? With a whopping 61% market share – it is a big target!

7 Types of Security Attacks and How to Prevent Them

A security attack is an unauthorized attempt to steal, damage, or expose data from an information system such as your website. Malicious hackers can go about this in a variety of ways:

Malware
Malicious software – ‘malware’ – infects devices without users realizing it’s there. Variations include Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, and viruses.

Secretly infected files or software can further introduce malware to your site. You could also trigger a malware download by clicking on a link in a pop-up window or an email attachment.

To prevent malware infections, you’ll want to install a security scanner. Our own security scanning feature is a low-cost and highly effective choice.

If your server is compromised, you can restore your files from a backup. Tools such as our backup feature enable you to schedule copies and save them to an external destination. This way you’ll have one handy should your site become compromised.
Drive-by downloads
A drive-by download is a method of distributing malware and occurs when a malicious script is inserted into a page’s PHP or HTTP. When a person visits the infected site, the malware is downloaded and silently infects, the device.

The best action you can take to prevent drive-by download attacks is to keep your security systems updated and remove any unnecessary software.
Phishing
Phishing is among the oldest and most common types of security attacks. These attacks have increased by 65 percent in the last year, and account for 90 percent of data breaches.

This form of social engineering deceives users into clicking on a link or disclosing sensitive information. It’s often accomplished by posing as a trusted source via email.
Spearphising
Spearphishing’ is a targeted attack on an individual.

A high-profile example is the 2016 case of Hillary Clinton. Staff members were tricked into sharing sensitive information and credentials which led to stolen data.

To minimize risk:
Never click on or download a file that seems suspicious.
Be wary of emails addressed generally, such as to “Dear Friend” rather than to you specifically.
Notice any glaring spelling or grammatical mistakes in emails. These are particularly important to pay attention to when an email is asking for payment or personal information.
Brute-force attacks
In brute-force security attacks, hackers often use dictionary software to repeatedly and systematically attempt password combinations until they find one that works. Once the cybercriminal has access, he can wreak major havoc on your site.

Users should always choose strong passwords that include a combination of letters, symbols, and numbers.
SQL Injections
Structured Query Language (SQL) injections are when an attacker injects malicious code into a server to manipulate back end databases. The goal is to reveal private data such as user lists, customer details, and credit card numbers.

SQL injection attacks can cause severe damage to businesses. Attackers can delete tables and gain administrative rights, although the most devastating aspect is the loss of your customers’ trust and loyalty.

Injections can occur through any form element on your site, including contact forms, blog comments, and search bars. Therefore, it’s important to review your forms to ensure each field is configured for the correct entry type.
Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) Attacks
With these attacks, the criminal positions themselves between your device and the server. They eavesdrop on, intercept, and manipulate communication between two parties – this often happens on unsecured wireless networks such as public WiFi,

Detection of these attacks is difficult, but prevention is possible. Always use secure WiFi connections.

Always install a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate on your site. This ensures communication between your website and a visitor’s browser is encrypted and inaccessible to MITM attackers. You can acquire a free SSL certificate through a provider such as BlueHost.

As you can see, there are many different methods cybercriminals can use to infect your site. These threats require a multi-layer approach to site security.

Our Maintenance Package includes security tools that make it easier to detect and stop attacks on your WordPress site. We also backup your site regularly. Our security scans help keep your content and users safe.

Google Blacklisting: What It Is & How to Avoid It

If you’re looking for a partner to manage your website and do what it takes to keep your WordPress site secure and humming along, check out our WordPress Maintenance Plans or contact us.