Hacking or stealing pages on websites is quite common and this week my site http://www.margaretgill.com/ got hacked.
My poor site looked more like the inside of a warehouse selling internet drugs than my lovely little site filled with love. After my initial feelings of violation and insecurity it became something I just had to “get over” because it is one of the hazards of having a website.
If it happens to your site, the first thing to do is to get your hosting company to change your password so the hackers can’t get at the site again, or at least it will make it harder to get back into your site. Be aware too that the hackers may have imbedded code in the site that will make it easy to repeat the action again, in which case you will need to completely reload your website from your back up files (tell me you have those!)
Also don’t forget to change your policy on passwords because lets be honest I have had the same password on my website since the day it was created back in 2002 and it has caused some minor irritations for me today. Also make sure you have numbers and letters in your password, it just makes it a wee bit harder for the hackers to get through.
Internet security is something we always have to be aware of and I’ll be speaking with my supplier to ensure I have everything in place to be certain it doesn’t happen again but it is not something that should make you stop in tracks and not use the technology. In my instance, the Universe has come in with a little message to remind me to make myself as safe as I can and then just “get on with it”.
Wednesday 28 November 2007
Wednesday 21 November 2007
Why Websites Don't Attract Visitors
Websites
MP3 File
Question
Why aren’t people visiting my website?
Answer
Let me answer that question with a question
Did Jackie O have a little black dress?
You bet she had several because she knew they got her attention. Website design is a lot like fashion design. Catwalk designer outfits look good on a select few but most of us look best in basic traditional styles that bring out our best features.
It’s the same with websites. Don’t be talked into the latest design fade when a basic site will be what brings the compliments and the visitors.
Most websites result in the search engines going straight over the top without even pausing for a look - quite simply because the site is invisible to them. Remember search engines love relevant text not pictures!
The majority of people who visit websites only stay 10 seconds. If you make it hard for people to see your site, or haven’t given them a compelling reason to stay you can rest assured they will be hitting the back button and will be gone in under 5 seconds. They will NEVER come back. You only have to look at the way you visit websites yourself to know this to be the truth. Isn’t that depressing!
The bad news only gets worse. Most search engines find you via four methods and many websites have these areas blank.
MP3 File
Question
Why aren’t people visiting my website?
Answer
Let me answer that question with a question
Did Jackie O have a little black dress?
You bet she had several because she knew they got her attention. Website design is a lot like fashion design. Catwalk designer outfits look good on a select few but most of us look best in basic traditional styles that bring out our best features.
It’s the same with websites. Don’t be talked into the latest design fade when a basic site will be what brings the compliments and the visitors.
Most websites result in the search engines going straight over the top without even pausing for a look - quite simply because the site is invisible to them. Remember search engines love relevant text not pictures!
The majority of people who visit websites only stay 10 seconds. If you make it hard for people to see your site, or haven’t given them a compelling reason to stay you can rest assured they will be hitting the back button and will be gone in under 5 seconds. They will NEVER come back. You only have to look at the way you visit websites yourself to know this to be the truth. Isn’t that depressing!
The bad news only gets worse. Most search engines find you via four methods and many websites have these areas blank.
- Titles – these are the words that appear in the tabs of your browser and is the heading that appears in a search engine ranking
- Meta Tags – the description you see when a site comes up in a natural ranking
- Keywords – are coded into your site and help search engines match your site to a search string
- Text - the actual words you see on your website
The more these four items match and compliment each other, the higher up the search engine ranking you go. People seek up to the minute information and for that reason blogs frequently out rank websites these days.
This nifty tool will let you see what a search engine sees when they pass through each page of your site click here - it’s sobering!
So check your text and make sure you have the required items that search engines can see.
Further resources
This blog forms part of an article I wrote for the Empowering Women website. You can read the full article here
There is further information about this topic on the Ladies Who Launch blog
Also you can purchase the "How To Get the Most from Your Website" workbook on my website
Monday 19 November 2007
How to Push Past Your Fears of Self Promotion
Mirror work and self promotion
MP3 File
Question
What are the best tools you can use to push past your fears of self promotion?
Answer
This is a key question in the success or failure for many practitioners. It’s the fear of self promotion that kills people who work from the heart. There are many different tools to use to get you out in the world but the best one is getting a firm belief in your abilities to help people. Once you have that nothing can stop you. If you can put your own stuff aside and only focus on the fact the every time you go out the front door you get a chance to tell another person how you can help people come to gain greater health and wellbeing in their life. You will go to great lengths when you have a higher vision.
The biggest thing to remember is that not everyone is going to want to know you. In the old days my coach made me go out with the expectation that 100% of people were going to say no, that way I could never feel I’d failed. If only one said yes, well it was just a big bonus. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to get a big bundle of yes’s in the early days. The thing is once I went out with no expectation of course I was just being myself and that helped people say yes more often.
The greatest tool I have is the mirror. In the early days I was encouraged by my coach to stand in front of a mirror and look myself in the eye and say really outrageous things that voice your fear in positive terms. So if you are afraid of speaking, you stand there and say I am the best platform speaker in my state. When you finally believe that, you start saying I am the best platform speaker in the country. Then you just repeat it over and over again until your cells start to believe it. Much of my fear busting is a result of mirror work and then going out and facing the fear. It’s worth the discomfort to get to work positively with people and live your dream of helping others.
MP3 File
Question
What are the best tools you can use to push past your fears of self promotion?
Answer
This is a key question in the success or failure for many practitioners. It’s the fear of self promotion that kills people who work from the heart. There are many different tools to use to get you out in the world but the best one is getting a firm belief in your abilities to help people. Once you have that nothing can stop you. If you can put your own stuff aside and only focus on the fact the every time you go out the front door you get a chance to tell another person how you can help people come to gain greater health and wellbeing in their life. You will go to great lengths when you have a higher vision.
The biggest thing to remember is that not everyone is going to want to know you. In the old days my coach made me go out with the expectation that 100% of people were going to say no, that way I could never feel I’d failed. If only one said yes, well it was just a big bonus. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to get a big bundle of yes’s in the early days. The thing is once I went out with no expectation of course I was just being myself and that helped people say yes more often.
The greatest tool I have is the mirror. In the early days I was encouraged by my coach to stand in front of a mirror and look myself in the eye and say really outrageous things that voice your fear in positive terms. So if you are afraid of speaking, you stand there and say I am the best platform speaker in my state. When you finally believe that, you start saying I am the best platform speaker in the country. Then you just repeat it over and over again until your cells start to believe it. Much of my fear busting is a result of mirror work and then going out and facing the fear. It’s worth the discomfort to get to work positively with people and live your dream of helping others.
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