WordPress powers over a third of all websites on the internet, making it an attractive target for malicious actors. As a result, WordPress security issues are a hot topic and a critical concern for many site owners and developers. It’s a jungle out there, and it’s teeming with potential threats that could harm your site or even knock it offline. Whether you’re a WordPress developer or a site owner, knowing these threats is the first step in keeping your site safe. In this blog, we will deep-dive into an array of potential WordPress attacks to arm you with the knowledge you need. I have tried to write it as simple as possible, though they are much technical, and not ever c developer or owner need to know everything. But, Here is the A-Z list of WordPress security issues.

Arbitrary File Overwrite

Arbitrary file overwrite attacks can exploit a weak plugin or a poorly secured theme to replace your original WordPress files with their own malicious ones. This could result in the replacement of your site’s theme, the injection of malicious code, or even a complete site takeover.

Authentication Bypass via Cookie

Cookies on WordPress are used to remember a user’s login information. A nefarious actor could exploit vulnerabilities in plugins or themes to forge a cookie and bypass authentication, effectively gaining unauthorized access to your site.

Backdoor Exploits

Backdoors are typically installed by an attacker after gaining access to a WordPress site, allowing them to maintain access even after the original vulnerability is patched. Backdoors can enable the attacker to modify site content, steal data, distribute malware, and more.

Broken Access Control

A broken access control attack on WordPress might happen when an unauthorized user gains access to admin privileges, effectively allowing them to modify content, alter themes, install plugins, or even delete the entire site.

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)

In a CSRF attack, a trusted WordPress user could be tricked into executing an unwanted action. An attacker could manipulate an admin into clicking a malicious link that changes site settings, deletes content, or modifies user roles, all without the admin’s knowledge. This is one of the very popular WordPress security issue.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attacks

WordPress sites are often targets for DDoS attacks, where an attacker overwhelms your site with traffic, causing it to become slow or even unresponsive. This can damage your reputation and result in loss of traffic and revenue.

Insecure Direct Object References (IDOR)

Insecure Direct Object References to occur when an attacker changes a part of the URL which refers to an object ID, like a file or a database entry. If not properly secured, this can give them unauthorized access to sensitive WordPress data.

IP Address Spoofing to Protection Mechanism Bypass

WordPress security plugins often use IP addresses to block or allow certain actions. If an attacker spoofs an IP address, they could bypass these security measures and perform malicious activities on your site.

Local File Inclusion (LFI) and Remote File Inclusion (RFI)

LFI occurs when an attacker can get your WordPress site to run or disclose the contents of a file from its own server. RFI is when the attacker gets your site to run a file from a remote server. Both can lead to loss of sensitive data or enable the attacker to execute arbitrary code.

Malvertising

Malvertising is the use of online advertising to spread malware. An attacker could exploit a weak WordPress plugin to inject malicious ads into your site, which can then be used to distribute malware to your site’s visitors.

Missing Authorization to Authenticated

On WordPress, a malicious actor might exploit a weak plugin to gain authentication. Once they are authenticated, they can carry out actions that they should not have access to, such as editing or deleting content, installing malicious plugins, or changing site settings.

Object Injection

An attacker can manipulate serialized data on WordPress to inject harmful objects into your application, potentially causing harm or gaining unauthorized access.

Open Redirection

Open redirection attacks can harm WordPress sites that rely on user trust. If a user is redirected from your site to a malicious one, their trust in your site may be permanently damaged, and the attacker could steal their sensitive data or trick them into downloading malware.

Phishing

Phishing is an attack where the attacker attempts to trick the user into giving up sensitive information by pretending to be a trustworthy entity. If an attacker gains control over part of your WordPress site and uses it to host a phishing page, users may be directed to this page and be tricked into providing their login credentials or other sensitive data.

Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

WordPress plugins often interact with external services, which can leave your site vulnerable to SSRF attacks. In this scenario, an attacker could manipulate your WordPress site into sending requests to other servers, potentially gaining access to sensitive information.

Unauthenticated SQL Injection and SQL Injection

WordPress sites are backed by a SQL database, making them a potential target for SQL Injection attacks. Attackers can exploit weak plugins or themes to run malicious SQL queries, possibly gaining access to, altering, or deleting your site’s database. Unauthenticated SQL injections are especially nefarious, as the attacker doesn’t even need a user account to carry out the attack. This is one of the important WordPress security issues that you should care about.

XML-RPC Attacks

XML-RPC is a feature WordPress uses to allow remote connections to the site. However, attackers can abuse this feature to carry out brute force attacks, or to exploit other vulnerabilities.

Cross Site Scripting (XSS), Stored Cross-Site Scripting, and Reflected Cross Site Scripting

Through XSS attacks, an attacker can insert malicious scripts into your WordPress site via poorly secured plugins or themes, leading to theft of sensitive information, such as user login credentials. Stored XSS attacks can be particularly damaging to WordPress sites, as the attacker uses a weak plugin or comment form to store their malicious script on your site permanently. Every user who views the infected page could potentially have their sensitive data stolen, and your site’s reputation could be seriously damaged. Reflected XSS, on the other hand, involves the malicious script being part of the URL and only affects the users who click on the manipulated link.

This list might seem daunting, but remember, understanding these potential attacks is the first step in securing your WordPress site. Each threat provides an opportunity to strengthen your defenses and protect your digital territory.

In conclusion, it’s clear that WordPress, while a powerful and flexible platform, is not without its potential security pitfalls. Each of the attack vectors we’ve outlined above represents a unique challenge that may require a distinct approach to address effectively. But getting away from these WordPress security issues is not a big deal.

Addressing these vulnerabilities often requires a solid understanding of WordPress’s inner workings, and technical proficiency in areas such as PHP, SQL, and web security principles. It’s not always a simple task, and certainly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

However, don’t be disheartened! If this all seems a bit overwhelming, worry not. We understand that not everyone who uses WordPress is a tech wizard, and that’s completely okay. In our upcoming posts, we’ll be providing a comprehensive guide to tackling these issues, broken down into simple, easy-to-follow steps.

Our goal is to empower you to safeguard your site, no matter your technical background. So, stay tuned for our follow-up post, where we’ll dive into the nuts and bolts of securing your WordPress site from the ground up. After all, knowledge is power, and with the right guidance, you’ll be well-equipped to fend off these potential threats.

If you need help on your hacked WordPress website, we at Macronimous can help to get the site cleaned and up. Write us and we will get back.

The post Understanding WordPress Vulnerabilities: An A-Z Guide to Potential Attacks first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Gartner Magic Quadrant

Summary

We at Macronimous started working with internally developed Custom CMS using ASP (Active Server Pages) during 2001. Then we moved to WordPress by Automattic (Which you see in Q1 – Challengers), Joomla and Drupal (by Acquia)which you see in Leaders. It has an open source self-hosted version, which is widely popular due to its easy of use and the support community that offers plugins and themes that make the development and implementation low-cost. However, things are different in Enterprise CMS. Acquia provides Hosted Drupal solutions.

Sitecore is dominant

As you see Sitecore is the leader in Web Content Management. It dominates the entreprise-grade CMS continuously for years. It is built with .NET technology with a strong association with Microsoft. This makes it  acceptable. However what is not acceptable is their pricing, which keeps going up. Sitecore 8.1 has a five-tiered licensing model to choose the right one for you.

Hippo, Adobe Experience manager, Acquia

Hippo was a niche player, according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant 2015 but not in 2019’s survey. It is Java based and Enterprise ready. Hippo is partnered with EMC now.

Users say Adobe Experience Manager has very good UX and capabilities as an Enterprise-grade WMS, But  it is priced high too.

In 2007 Acquia raised $7M for the Drupal platform and then started supporting Drupal community continuously. We at Macronimous use Drupal for high-end custom web applications. But, if you are looking for a simple content management system, then Drupal may not be the right choice. We

To view the full report, download it here.

NOTE: As a continuous CMS developer and industry Watcher, Macronimous will update this blog every year.

The post Enterprise Web CMS – Gartner Magic quadrant (Update 2020) first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

The release of the Google Hummingbird algorithm in 2013 has been a major development in search engine land. Among the other vital changes carried by the Hummingbird, the incorporation of conversational search parameters in SEO has emerged as a critical ranking success driver.

I wrote a blog (Google conversational search – a challenge to SEO?), during December 2013 after finding that Hummingbird and the conversational search are going to change the way SEO professionals doing over a decade and how they need to change immediately. Conversational or semantic search focuses on working out a system responding to ‘natural queries’ to deliver the best answer, and this  made SEOs revise their content strategy. The importance of high-quality content has been increasing like never before.

In all these years of operation, Google already has a rich repository of billions of search templates to set out patterns of natural semantics. To give a sense of what Google has collected over years from sources such as Wikipedia and the World Factbook by CIA, it has developed a Knowledge Graph that contains 570 million objects and close to 18 billion pieces of information and relationship between different objects. All this leads to providing sense or context behind the meaning of search query. To put it more effectively, the new algorithm update from Google now looks to account for each and every word in the query and not just the keyword itself. This helps to better understand the context and meaning behind the query and deliver results accordingly.

Why conversational search?

Let’s look at the two most distinguishable reasons why conversational search has emerged as the next big thing in SEO – these are shifting user preferences and evolving technologies.

1. User Preferences – With the advent of tablets and smartphones, the devices being used to access the Internet became smaller and smaller. While typing in queries, it became more and more difficult to type in a search query. Hence users were increasingly moving towards other ways of searching without having to type to search for information.
2. Evolving technologies – Google has updated its algorithm with Hummingbird which now provides support for spoken word search. The presence of Knowledge Graph and information repository makes it possible for Google to understand the relationship between the words spoken into the query and thus yield better results. This also led to the need for good speech and voice apps. In answer to this need, many exciting offerings from different companies have come to the fore – Siri and Cortana are now being increasingly used for the voice-based search.

So while conventional search involved returning results based on individual keywords, conversational search analyse a whole set of words within a sentence (or conversation). Using natural speech technologies, Google looks to mimic human spoken/written sentence to derive better relevance to the answers returned by Google.

Take a small instance – While earlier users typed “Singapore weather”, they got a long list of news, web content, image and several sites that give plenty of information and advice on Singapore weather. But with conversational search, by employing articles, conjunctions or pronouns, users might type in a query called “Should I take my Umbrella today” and the result would be more specific such as “You do not require taking an Umbrella Today”.

How to handle conversational search in your website?

Employing the understanding into practice, the search engine behemoth is evolving constantly to become increasingly organic. Optimizers need to interpret the fine tuning of searching to develop effective keyword strategies. Voice based search facilities such as Google Now, Cortana, and Siri further exemplifies the necessity to figure how semantics search works.

The key challenge, as it has always been so, is the lack of official guidelines whatsoever. In keeping things organic, Google did not even make much of a formal announcement on releasing the most major update till date. There had been no great fanfare about the Hummingbird except in blog posts and discussions in the SEO niche. Hence for our readers, we bring together some important tips to help optimize content keyword strategies in putting semantics SEO to practice.

The keywords that come naturally: Optimizers need to think constantly on the naturalness of queries. Do not think like a marketer following a systematic approach. Instead, one needs to think like a general user looking for information. Based on this perspective, you have to develop a set of key phrases called “long tail keywords”.

Decode the keywords into categories such as core words, thematic words, and broad phrases. If the search query is about ‘semantic SEO’, it has to be the core phrase. A thematic phrase can be something such as, ‘how organic SEO works’. Broad phrases further incorporate a widened idea encompassing the core concept. In this example, it can be, ‘the latest SEO trends Hummingbird’.

Once you work out the long tail keywords, develop organic content without keyword stuffing and incorporation in the natural flow. In the above example, did you find the above keywords out of the flow? You did not; nevertheless, they still work in optimizing this content to bring this blog up in your search result. Lastly, make sure that you write for human beings. Focusing on people needs over search engine it will also provide a sense of what need to be done to score with semantic search.

Avoid stagnation and over-activity: SEO experts must avoid the perils of both stagnation and over-activity in keyword optimization. The essence of organic is in its regular rhythm. In SEO, obtaining a position in the first ten results in Google search results is the objective of every webmaster. You have to make sure the SEO efforts are in balance. So, in blogging, you cannot just upload 20 blogs in 2 days and wait for the results to work in your favour. It does not work like that! Instead, spread out the twenty posts over 4 weeks, uploading in an organic pace. One needs to keep working and fine tuning the SEO parameters in a balanced manner, constantly.

The reason we at Macronimous love our work is because in SEO change is the only constant. The guys at Google and Microsoft love keeping our online marketers on high alert with such new and exciting methods. Even with semantic search, our focus has evolved to understand how keywords now match user intent rather than a search need. So while keywords per se are not as effective in delivering high search rankings, we make sure to craft content using targeted and varied keywords as this helps Google understand if the site aligns with user’s information needs.

Are you looking for an SEO company which takes care of your website marketing with great care? If Yes, We are Macronimous serve our globe clients from India with a passion for learning, and this is why we share too. You can see more details from our SEO business service page.

The post Conversational Search Revisited first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Ten years ago, there were only a handful of bloggers in the blog vile. People who had a good command of English had a blog of their own. But today, every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a blog. Yes! Everyone and their brothers are blogging now irrespective of whether they have readers or not. Some of you might try to write everything under the Sun. But, have you gone through the phase where your blog posts do not even get 50 hits? You might have thought what went wrong and why people do not read your content. You might have even thought of quitting for good. Is yes, just keep reading and this post might answer your questions. I have listed down ten simple steps and you will be surprised to find these tips would make the page hits graph going up.

After reading this tips, feel free to share them with your little brother who desperately need them too.

1) Keep a “bait” in your Titles
The first thing that the reader will notice about your blog is the title of the blog. Even if you have a wonderful story to tell, if you do not pull your audience with a catchy title, your story might not even reach your audience. This is where many of you will get dejected. Some of the greatest literary works are not even read by a huge audience as they are not properly marketed. Very ordinary writers have caught hold of the literature market share with their marketing skills. For example, Chetan Bhagat is a popular Indian writer. However, Literature enthusiasts will not even consider him in the top 100 writers list in India. But that doesn’t stop him to be accepted as a leading writer in India by his readers. His secret is his marketing skill. He uses the right title for his books to reach his audience (Eg. Five point someone ). Moreover, his works are simple and he doesn’t juggle with words that make his readers carry a Thesaurus all the time. So when you write a blog post, make sure that you have the right title for your blog post.

2) Let the “pictures speak” too!
If you are writing a blog post, you should upload a picture too. It could speak a thousand words. Following this simple logic, make sure that for every 1000 words you write, there is a suitable picture on your blog post. The pictures or the illustrations you use should draw readers to your post. Pictures have the pull factor. In many TV commercials, you would have seen women being used for products that men use. The whole idea is to make sure that men watch these ads. In the blog world, spend the time to add a suitable ‘dragging’ picture for your blog.
When you upload a picture, make sure that it does not violate copyright laws. Edit your pictures wisely. If you are not good at Photoshop, you can use www.pixlr.com to edit your pictures. You can add watermark to your pictures too. Add the right color mix to the pictures that you upload on your blog post.

3) “Rename” the pictures you add in your blog
The picture that you upload on your blog post should be renamed and should be search engine friendly. Just take a look at the pictures you have on your hard drive. Do not just upload your DSC00016.jpg, DSC00017.jpg, DSC00018.jpg etc. Many of you might not have the habit of renaming the pictures. When you upload these pictures in your blog post, make sure that you rename the pictures with a suitable file name (preferably some keywords as file names) that goes with your blog content. When readers search for a particular image on Google or in other search engines, they will not be using the words “DSC00016 or DSC00017”. Naming the picture increases the chances of your blog getting noticed. Start doing this today. This is one of the simplest SEO techniques that you can manually start implementing for your blog posts.

4) “Answer” to a wide number of readers
People search and keep on searching for questions all the time. If you are a blogger who writes on a specific theme, make sure that your blog has the answer to all the questions related to your field. This blog post will surely answer a lot of questions that bloggers have, and that is the sole reason for Macronimous to publish this blog. There might be umpteen number of websites that deal with the same topic. But make sure that your content has the right answers to the right questions that readers have. Once you develop a bond with the reader, the reader will become your regular visitor.

5) Keep it “Fresh”
In the game of Cricket, even Sachin Tendulkar has to retire. Unless and until your blog is updated with the changing trends in the web world, you will fall behind in the race and you would have no other choice to call it quits. Read more on the stream you blog on. Knowledge is wealth and to acquire knowledge, you should keep reading. Attend social networking meets; network with people and when you do this, even without your knowledge you would have gained knowledge. When you acquire knowledge, make sure that you share it on your blog with a suitable title, and with a suitable picture.
Keep watching the comments from your blog readers, it could give you an opportunity correct your views, typos and even include more content and facts.

6) Be a “trendsetter”
If you are blogging for more than 5 years on a particular theme but if you are not known to the public, then you are just another ordinary blogger. Do not go unnoticed. If you consider that you were failing with your blog, follow the first 5 steps and you can see that you will be noticed in the social media. If you are blogging about food, people should follow you hungrily for lip-smacking recipes and cuisines. This is where your success lies in. When people think of twitter one-liners, the first name that comes to the mind is Ramesh Srivats. When we think of an Apple, the first name that flashes across the eyes is Steve Jobs. When people think about a blog stream, your name should come to their mind. Work towards that goal.

7) Be “interactive” to comments
This is a very important thing that many bloggers fail to do. Blogging need not be just one way. It’s a platform to integrate. When people become popular, they have a tendency not to reply to each and every comment. This kind of behavior will slowly make a small group hate you. Even if you write great content, this group will stop reading your content, because they know that you would not even read their comments. Good bloggers are those who engage readers in comments and respond to all the comments. Comments help the blogger to grow more and more and also in building good networks. Do not forget to integrate social media such as Facebook’s fan box and keep it open for people to discuss.
Also, be ready for criticisms on comments and do not forget to thank constructive criticism and do not hesitate to modify your blog content if they correct or point out issues.

8) “Advertise it” in social media platforms
If you have a blog, you should also have a fan page on Facebook, a twitter handle. Active participation in other social networking platforms like Google plus, Slideshare, Youtube, Quora is pluses. Make sure to leave your blog URL in as many places as possible; but also see to that you leave your blog URL in the relevant place or else you will become popular as a spammer.

9) Keep the content “Rich” with information
Gone are the days where you can get away with philosophical gas. Now unless and until you write meaningful content, your readers will treat you like trash. Your content should be search engine friendly, crisp, to-the-point and updated.
If your blog content is the first of its kind, and if readers have to come only to your blog to read your content, then you are moving in the right direction. Create a brand for yourself. Your Brand equity will grow if you publish a content rich website.

10) “Study” your blog statistics.
Closely monitor your blog statistics to find the sources from where your readers visit your blog. Some sources might yield a number of visitors from where you didn’t expect. These sources are the ones where your presence is more. At the same time, notice the weak links and these are the sources that you need to work on.
If you follow these ten steps in your blogging journey, do not be surprised if your blog gets thousands of hits within an hour.
Have a great blogging journey. If you had liked this article share it with your friends through Facebook / Email or through any other modes.

About Prason, the Chronic Writer: Prason, popularly known as the chronic writer is a Christian writer, blogger, singer, composer, Salsa Dancer and father of a 4-year-old blogger. Prason is working for a nonprofit organization and contributes to Social Media Marketing, you can see his Humor blog at www.chronicwriter.com

Like to see this blog in simple slides?

The post How to get more readers to your blog post? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

People search for answers, and Google wants to give them it Crisp and clear. This is why Hummingbird is here!

In their effort to make the usage experience better, Google periodically updates its core search engine algorithm to make it better and more efficient. This also helps search query to return more accurate and relevant SERP‘s, and website indexing more in tune with their content and its quality. With its Panda and Penguin updates over the last couple of years, Google has indeed made a number of positive changes to its algorithm, resulting in better quality, more relevant search results. With the recent update which it has christened ‘Hummingbird‘, Google has implemented more features and made the engine more powerful, with the promise of more to-the-point search results.

Natural search with long tail keywords

Hummingbird and Conversational Search

With the new Hummingbird algorithm, Google has changed the way search engines used to treat a search string. Previously, more importance was placed on “keywords” or specific words and phrases in the search text, which would be an indicator of what the user really wanted to find.
Now, with the new conversational search feature, Google is treating search queries more like directly asked questions, called long tail keywords, or natural language search queries – where every word matters. The whole sentence is being taken into account to deliver the right set of results, which are more relevant and satisfy the search query better. Google’s Knowledge Graph is one of the main components here, providing information and significantly adding to Google’s ability to “understand” search strings, instead of performing keyword matches.

Impact on SEO
SEO has always been one of the major factors to get affected whenever Google brings about changes in their search algorithm. With the previous updates during Panda and Penguin, Google changed many of the factors that determined their ranking of web pages, and SEO experts had to consequently factor that into their optimization campaigns.

Similarly, with the new Hummingbird update, SEO looks set for another bunch of challenges as far as approach and strategy are concerned. Earlier, keyword-based SEO efforts were known to produce great results. Now, with the conversational search feature that Google has implemented, stuffing a web page with keywords is not going to be a decisive factor in determining relevance. So far, page ranking and visibility have not been affected much, but with time, these will also begin to change in accordance with Google’s new algorithm.

Google has stipulated one thing very clearly to website owners – provide relevant and meaningful content to users, and see your SERP coming up.

Focus shift for SEO providers
Hummingbird focuses more on conversational search queries which are not keyword dependent but are more like questions a user might ask another person. Therefore, instead of specific keywords, the entire sentence is taken into account, and SERPs are delivered based on a clear understanding of its meaning and intent.

No Keyword Data from Google
For SEO professionals, it means a shift of focus from the older keyword-based techniques to a new, conversation-based approach towards SEO. Traditionally, through Google analytics keywords used to find a site were logged and it was visible, but that option no longer exists.

At present, web pages that are already in a good position with respect to search results do not really need to change much. Those web pages, on the other hand, which rely solely on keywords to be counted as relevant, need to rethink their strategy, and use longer phrases and sentences to provide relevant answers to be in tune with the new Hummingbird algorithm.

Steps to take to harness the power of Hummingbird
In order to unleash the full potential of Hummingbird and its new conversational search feature, a few things must be kept in mind to make SEO efforts effective and get results in the long run:

1. Learning curve – It is important for SEO providers to achieve a clear understanding of the way Hummingbird and conversational searches work, and to let the knowledge influence SEO efforts, so as to make complete use of the new features.
2. Strategy shift – Stuffing a web page with keywords is not going to be effective any longer. Rather, the focus should be more on real questions that users might query in, regarding a particular topic. This also translates to providing relevant and to-the-point answers to those questions, without worrying much about keywords and their placement.
3. Content – Web page content will remain to be the most important factor in determining relevance and ranking. As an SEO professional, you need to use content that provides targeted information about the topic in question in a natural, organic way, and does not seem to be contrived or overly keywords-stuffed. Content must be engaging, interesting and share-worthy to have an advantage in terms of SEO.
4. Technological adoption – With the new conversational search, it might be predicted that a number of users will move from conventional type searches to using voice search. It is important to keep in mind that web pages optimized for mobile access might be given preference when searches are being made from mobile devices.

The Hummingbird update is set to make searches more natural and spontaneous, and SEO efforts should be made keeping in mind the conversational nature of the new algorithm’s search system. So while it may look like a threat to an average SEO provider, the fact remains that if relevant content and ethical optimization practices have been a company’s focus in the past, adapting to these changes won’t take much of an effort.

The post Google conversational search – a challenge to SEO? (Updated) first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Frustrated bloggers and their fading blogs have caved in to glib social networks, feeling that the competition from the professional blog rate in the Technorati 100 is too fierce. The synchronization of energy and time used to create digestible, creative online content seems lost on superficial audiences who suffer willingly and culturally from short attention spans. The world has become a place where what song you’re hearing right this moment has undone the thoughtful review of the music of life itself, a one-liner world of instant gratification that’s enough to trip the trigger of eternal writer’s blog block.

The post IS “BLOGGING” DEAD? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

1. Flash: When they ask for a fully flashed website, let them know the adversity it might make. By doing this you are helping them to establish the right online presence. Unless your client is Coca cola or Burger King ( I mean,  :-), an establish brand), they will really want to establish better Visibility to the Search Engines.

2. SEO – If a client just wants a website, let them know what SEO is and how it is going to help them. Make the site SEO friendly within the design scope (Eg. Image tags, XHTML validations, designing without tables, etc). Most of the clients will not say NO to make their site ready for SEO.

3. CMS – Ask how frequently they want to change the content, and if they do, let them do know how to do it themselves with a CMS. You may also need to let them know the advantages of fresh content. I believe instead of providing them a static site of 20 pages, you can introduce them Joomla and how to use it, for some additional but onetime investments.

4. Advantages of Opensource – Do they need a CMS or Ecommerce, You can justify why you charge less. Let them know that you can cut cost by using WordPress or Magento and still make their site professional. By doing this you are introducing standards – if your client goes to some other developers, it would not be difficult for them to take up the work.

I recommend you to keep a short write up (with some references) or articles on the above mentioned (you may keep that under your client section of your website) and ask the client to refer them. It also helps them to understand that you know what you tell them.

The post 4 Things you should let your web development client know first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Presume you have worked on site SEO and now you have got Good/desired SEO results with your website – you are on the top of your business competitors with your targeted business keywords.

Thinking of what’s next? Do you want to leave the site with the results that you have attained and  forget SEO since you have got your results? Nope. You shouldn’t.

If your targeted keywords generate enough revenue then think of how much competitive your keywords should be and how many of your competitors will be using those keywords and working for good number of quality links for their site

Search engine algorithm gives better value for frequently updated a site with keywords around the content and for a site that continuously gets quality backlinks.

Watch closely your competitor and find out what they do to compete for your site. Here are the factors that need to be frequently monitored:

1.  Content updates – It is always recommended to fine-tune and update your content at least once in a month or two with keywords around meeting keyword density and keyword prominence.

2. Brushing up your Keywords  – As always monitor your top ranking keywords and fine-tune it according to the number of total search results and compare with your competitor’s activity on those keywords of your target. Check out the areas in your content to know where you can focus your top keywords and build quality backlinks for those keywords as anchor text. Be sure to meet keyword density and do not stuff keywords.

3. External site link juice – Check whether all the links build exits with the time period since some may be removed or moved out to some inner folder level and the algorithm might not identify those backlinks. So, build equal and relevant links as an alternative to those links that had been masked and improve or retain the position with a good number of quality links.

4.  Monitor traffic – Analyzing your traffic is one of the essential factors were you need to know how a site performs with search engine organic clicks and directories or sites referrals. If you notice any drops in traffic, identify those areas and work on them to set your goal.

And also here is a set of questions which you can use it as a checklist that can help you to maintain SEO results and withstand the competition.

• Check how your competitors rank in Google, Yahoo and Bing for your keywords?
•  Have you updated your content that meets current target market and information?
• Are you tweaking your website structure for search engine friendliness that meets current algorithm?
• Are you working on building quality links regularly?
• Are you optimizing your site with the current popular keywords?
•  Are you analyzing your traffic to know from which location your visitors are coming from and optimize the site for those locations based search engines?

These important factors and checklist will help you to measure the site strength and weakness of your site. Now you should have known that search engine optimization is not one-time activity and search engine algorithm gets updated often and competitors fight for your top keywords position. Keep in mind, your website needs continues SEO in order to retain and improve your good SEO results.

Maintaining the SERPs (result/Position) are equally important as your SEO process. Continuous SEO within the process of SEO is necessary to generate  business queries. So keep up the good SEO, Always, do not think about stopping your activities.

The post How to maintain good SEO results you obtained after great efforts? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Now let us see why you should avoid duplicating the content?

First of all, copying the content brings down the understanding of the concept. If you start understanding, it helps you grow. The scriptwriter should understand what something is and how it works. If you copy, you are missing out on that. You are just resurfacing the upper layer and not getting into layers underneath when you do that.

If you are not willing to write on your own, you will not know the exact intention and get stuck at one place. You will not know how to take it forward and the originality of the content will be missing.

While it is just easier to copy the content from someone else, why do you have to create a new one? If you don’t do that, you will not know how exactly it looks like, and you will not be able to read the way it should be read. The final outcome will be an artificial one.

Content Duplication and its impacts on SEO

1. Duplication of content will be considered a spam by all the search engines. There are so many websites with similar products, so the copywriter must be very careful in creating content. Search Engines likes fresh and unique content. It ranks websites depending primarily on the content used in web pages.

2. Changing the phrase of an existing content and rewriting is also considered as content duplication. Search Engines have ways to find out and it is supposed to be spam. This will certainly affect the ranking of a website.

3. When a website is reported to have duplicate content issues, the total number of pages ranked by the search engine will automatically come down. Fewer pages to rank will lessen the rankings and might lead to lower traffic.

4. It is important to make your content unique; otherwise, there is absolutely no point in doing all these. The search engines will not bother to feature your website in its result pages.

5. There is a difference between content duplication “penalties” and “filtering”. When we refer to the penalty in search engine rankings, we actually talk about points being reduced from your overall score, but the truth is, the pages are just filtered like you filter unwanted particles from a can of liquid. Accidently, this filtering can sometimes filter out your good articles too.

Tips to avoid Content Duplication

1. While preparing content, make sure you don’t copy it from somewhere and try to replace the words with exact meanings. The search engines have already come up with a solution to deal with this issue.

2. Before you sit down to write, ask yourself what exactly will create value for your users.

3. Try to get various perspectives, take the good points from them and fill the rest with your own thoughts and creativity. After all, you have to make it happen and move forward.

4. You can be influenced by many, but make sure you don’t copy anything.

So while preparing content, watch out for duplication from search engine’s point of view and as well as loyal customer’s point of view. At the end of the day, it is the search engine and ultimately the customer who are going to “look” at your content, so make sure it is liked by both, otherwise, all the efforts you put in for your business to grow will go wasted.

The post Why you shouldn’t duplicate website content? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

You have a well-designed website with perfect usage of flash banners and graphic designs, with proper site navigation and easy accessibility. Still, do you feel that you are not getting the desired visitors and sales to your site? I suggest you probably need to work on the content in the site. I believe it is essential to have effective web content in a website, to attract the search engines.

So, how can one write effective content for their websites? Read it as “effective writing” and not “lengthy writing”. Out of my experience as an SEO consultant and professional content writer, the more crisp and easy to understand the content is, the greater are the chances for it to become a hit among the readers. Also, I am of the opinion that regularly updating your website with data that is useful for the visitors would divert more traffic to your site. When do you think one needs to consider re-writing their website content? I have come across the following observations that I have mentioned below:

• Traffic inflow is good, but the conversion is not as expected, because the visitors are probably not getting what they expected out of the contents.
• When the content is very less and the site is filled with only graphics and Flash designs
• The content on the website is not explaining more about your business and gives irrelevant information to your visitors.

I have found the following tips highly helpful in maintaining effective SEO web copy for websites:

• Know your audience: Understand who are your audience and write keeping them in mind. Also write stuff that they can relate themselves to and what is realistic.
• Give a clear picture of your business: The content in your website should give exact details of your business. This helps in your audience getting a better idea of your business, thereby encouraging an inflow of website-relevant traffic.
• Make the content heading more appealing: Now that you know your audience well, next try writing stuff that will appeal to them. For example, if your visitors are going to be more careful and budget-conscious family ladies, then you could write articles like “Top 8 ways to organize your household budget effectively”(Gosh! Am sure I myself would be interested to read it as well, and am not even married!) The heading has a striking impact to attract readers and wins a main part of the battle of bringing in traffic.
• Give them some useful information: Well you have clearly understood who your visitors are going to be, and you have catchy headings as well. But what if the content inside is of no use to the audience. Write stuff that contains utilitarian information to your clients.
• Choose apt keywords: You have got to think from a normal layman’s point of view, who is searching for products. Choose probable keywords that your audience would search in the search engines.
• Use Keyword phrases: Bank on phrases and not single words as keywords, because the probability of searchers using phrases of words is more.
• Keyword phrases in Meta tags, links and headings: Now that you have frozen on the keyword phrases, use them in Meta tags, link them with text links, so that the pages get related to one another. This increases the probability of search engines spotting them out. Also use these phrases in headings as well
• Check and re-check! And more importantly, check and recheck whatever you have written, to overrule any spelling or grammatical errors.

In my opinion, these are certain ideal steps that you can follow from the SEO point of view, to optimize your site. I am sure, if written smartly and relevantly, web contents would help give a boost to your website, thereby increasing relevant traffic and sales conversion.

Also, feel free to download our Practical SEO Techniques EBook.

Update (Jan 2025): I revisited this article, originally written in 2008, and found it even more relevant in 2025!

The post How important is effective web content for SEO? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.