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    Author: Alexander

    • Security Statistics and Trends

      Hello,

      We have launched Security Statistics and trends so you can view the dynamics for each of your websites.That allows you to make right decisions to keep your website safe.

      Measuring effectiveness of security in the face of attacks is critical. Faster time of detection is critical to minimize damage from attacks. The logical step in this way to better web security is to establish full visibility of activity, as you can’t manage what you can’t see.

      The Statistics includes all registered actions and detailed statistics on individual security parameters.

      To see your statistics, go to your security dashboard and click “Trends” in Dashboard menu.

    • Changing SSL Policy Requirements

      Changing SSL Policy Requirements

      Hello,

      We want to inform you about changes in our SSL service providing.

      The Comodo Certificate Authority will make a change in Certification Authorities’ policy requirements, reducing the maximum lifetime for all TLS/SSL certificates to 825 days, which is just over 27 months. This is a reduction from the existing maximum term of 39 months, meaning the maximum validity for an SSL certificate is now two years, and not three.

      As a result, Comodo CA will adopt these new lifetime requirements effective March 1, 2018 and three-year certificates will be removed as options from all prices.

      So, you don’t have a much time left to buy SSL for 3 years and forget about re-insurance your SSL every year.

      Look at our SSL offer.

      Thank you!

    • CleanTalk Released a MOD for the Protection of XenForo 2 Against Spam and Spam Bots

      CleanTalk completed the development MOD for the XenForo2, to protect your online store against spam and spambots.

      The anti-spam MOD is compatible with XenForo versions v2.x. and approved on the XenForo official catalog.

      This extension allows users to quickly and easily connect to CleanTalk anti-spam service. Its service provides 100% protection from spam bots and provides a simple and convenient commentary/sign-up form for visitors.

      This MOD allows protection from automatically distributed spam, as well as from spam bots registrations. The protection method offered by CleanTalk allows users to switch from the methods that trouble the communication (CAPTCHA, question-answer etc.) to a more convenient one.

      CleanTalk saves time and resources spent on moderation and verification of questionable users or comments. Unnoticeable Protection from spam and registration forms, which does not require the visitor to prove who they are, increases the conversion in registration and is not annoying.

      CleanTalk is a cloud service, security module, installed on a website, which sends the behavior parameters of the visitor or spambot. These parameters are estimated, and the service makes a decision – to post a message or to define it as spam and reject.

      On the basis of such checks, the service forms its own list of email addresses used by spambots. Likewise, the registration of visitors is checked. The service adds not only email addresses to the blacklist but also IP addresses and domains of the websites that are promoted through spam mailout. The CleanTalk company developed unique algorithms to assess the behavior of the visitor, and with 100% accuracy, we keep spam messages at bay. All of this happens automatically and requires no action from the administration of the website.

      You can now download CleanTalk Anti-Spam from XenForo official catalog.

      The Company provides automatic spam protection services for popular CMS: WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, Drupal, DataLife Engine, IP Board, vBulletin, MediaWiki, SimpleMachinesForum and API for PHP, Perl, Python, NET.

    • Why You Must Be Using SSL on Your Website and for e-Commerce

      Why You Must Be Using SSL on Your Website and for e-Commerce

      With more and more businesses coming online and commercial markets opening every day, we are moving towards a cashless economy speedily. A wide range of goods and services are available online now. Cyber threats, in this scenario, aren’t any less. Hence, it has become equally important to protect and safeguard one’s legal rights online. That’s where Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates comes in handy. Most of the well-aware customers do not make a purchase from a website or consider a business less authentic if that ‘green light’ in your URL isn’t visible.

      Do you know what impacts can SSL make, why is it a compulsion for your online store or website, and how to install or download it?

      We have covered it all step-by-step. Take a quick look to understand it:

      What is SSL and how it works?

      The function of an SSL is to provide encryption between a Web server and a browser, by generating a link which guarantees that whatever information is passed between a browser and a server is completely secure and encrypted. This certificate is being used by websites all around the world today, especially by those, involved in e-commerce operations. It is mandatory to safeguard the transactions between a business and its customers.

      In order to create a successful SSL connection, a certification is required by your server. When activated, it leads to the creation of two cryptogenic keys upon confirmation of the identity of your site and service. One of these is private key and another is public. An SSL Certificate contains details that validate your authenticity including the name of your company, domain website and your official offline address.

      Benefits of SSL – Why is it Essential Today?

        1. SECURITY:
          Online privacy is of paramount importance to companies and individuals. Information passed from one source to another actually travels through many different computers before reaching the server it is destined for. Hence, the chance of a leak of private and crucial information such as credit card and bank account details is rather high, enhancing the need for a reliable security system such as SSL. Through SSL, identity thieves as well as hackers are kept at bay.SSL ensures tight encryption of the web pages, presence in registered domain. Through this, your buyers and visitors can stay assured that their personal information, identity and their other details are secure and that they are being legally protected against cyber theft and malpractice.Since e-commerce is being used by everyone and people have to share the confidential information, such as credit card details, no one trusts a non-SSL website for making purchase. Due to this security issue, your sales will face excessive decline. Not only your users, it also secures you by transmitting the amount to your account and not to the hacker.
        2. AUTHENTICITY
          Using SSL is the guarantee that the information that is transmitted, reaches the correct person. Even though multiple computers are involved in the transmission of information, safety is guaranteed.Authenticity grants the boon of trust amongst the customers and service providers. Many customers will be using multiple computers or devices to make the purchase. Suppose they make the purchase through cyber cafes, the chances of an impostor website pretending to be yours is very high. Such sites are aimed at obtaining the financial and personal details of the customers. SSL certificates are only handed to those companies and websites who are able to prove their identity through many means. Authentication of an SSL certificate is guaranteed by third-party involvement in the procedure. This leads to increased contrast between the website and the SSL provider as well.
        3. TRUST
          When customers see the symbols that are placed as visual cues for them – for example the symbol of a lock icon on their web browser- this indicates to them that the connection they are currently making is secure and that their information is being protected against any kind of misuse which helps build the crucial trust between the clients and the traders. Healthy professional relationships are built on trust and reliability of the quality of both the websites as well as the products they sell. It has been shown that customers would keep coming back to a site reputed to be safe rather than one that offers a wider selection of services and products or even the websites that offer similar goods for lesser prices- hence proving the essentiality of trust. Providers of SSL generally add visual cues targeted to your customers who upon noticing them are not reluctant to make a purchase from you- following their instincts of your website not being a scam.This is also attributed to the fact that in order to be able to obtain secure credit card information from the customers for your website- there are many credibility tests to be passed before achieving the qualification of being compliant with the Payment Card Industry standards and guidelines- and one of them is a licensed and valid SSL certification.
        4. PROTECTION AGAINST PHISHERS
          Many identity thieves and hacker websites resort to a scam method that is highly popular these days known as phishing- where in under the name of your company spam emails are sent out in mass to customers within and sometimes outside your database- so that when the customer- believing the e-mail to be sent by you opens the mail- they see a link which they assume is to your website- while in reality it is to a website set up by the phishers site where they either attempt to scam your customers out of information about their IDs or financial details including bank accounts and passwords. However, such phishing sites have one major drawback- they are not given any SSL Certification if your website has already acclaimed yours- hence to your customers who have previously visited your SSL protected site with the visual cues- something seems wrong and thus they do not trust that it is your website who has contacted them. This guarantees the safety of the customers from the phishers whilst leaving your reputation and customer relations untarnished.

      All this being said here is why SSL isn’t that popular among many websites yet-

      1. The high cost of obtaining an SSL certification and renewing it periodically is not something that is affordable to most start-up and developing websites. Since the provision of an SSL service is rather detailed and tedious with most of the work being of a rather complicated nature, the cost is bound to be high for the amount of work put in. Since the arrival of numerous competitors the prices however have more or less been regulated.
      2. There is a delay in delivering high speed performance due to the multiple servers and multiple encryptions involved for each of these services which then has to be decoded by the designated server- the involvement of multiple resources along with the detailed encryption might lead to a less effective overall performance.

      Improve Search Ranking. In recent orders by Google, the sites that have procured an SSL certification are listed as secure websites and hence prioritised by the search engine by boosting them to the top of the search results, thus SSL acts as an SEO tool without you even realising it. Google provides warnings to its users about the sites that are not using SSL by stating that these sites are not secure, quite rightly. A high ranking in the search results is a very important tool in the success of any online venture- business or not, hence this is of paramount importance to the commercial websites that they ensure they stay in the good books and approved lists of the very popular and highly trusted search engine providers such as Google since it is the most important link between any site and their potential customers or viewers. Since the impact of Google is rather high, customers are one hundred percent likely to steer clear of any site that has been given the label of being not secure by Google.

      However, since the benefits outweigh the risks and drawbacks by a large amount, the best option is to always invest in a quality SSL providing service. Now the need comes to choosing wisely the best SSL available to you.

      One of the most highly recommended SSL services would be CleanTalk which is ideal for start up websites who are practising small to medium scale businesses. Services are provided for personal blogging sites as well.

      Why CleanTalk is one of the best SSL provider?

      It is definitely one of the most cost effective SSL provider for small websites, among all others because it uses an effective and necessary SSL certificate that is the least expensive one of them all but covers all your basic needs- it guarantees your safety as well as your customers just like all the other SSL certifications but instead cuts out implications that are unnecessary for smaller websites- so there is no additional cost as this certification is provided keeping in mind exactly what you need and the financial drawbacks that are experienced by small scale websites.

      User information is one hundred percent protected, the less expense does not compromise in any manner with the effectiveness of the service- customer satisfaction is guaranteed- in both quality and effect of the service- which has stood test of time.

      At very affordable packages, you can avail the following services-

      1. Securing your domain name- both abc.com as well as www.abc.com (examples)
      2. A single domain can be effectively secured.
      3. The site is modified to be supported in mobile format.
      4. Guarantees 99.99 percent browser recognition.
      5. All this is done using 2048 bit signatures or 256 bit encryption.
      6. CleanTalk provides you with unlimited reissuance of the certification.
      7. Unlimited server licenses available.
      8. No tedious paper work involved- once certificate is obtained, the Comodo Certificate Centre automatically checks the domain name you have secured – saving you the need for other forms of legislation and proof in the form of additional paperwork.
      9. Search engine optimization results in Google search.

      CleanTalk believes in putting the needs of the clients ahead of anything else and thus customer satisfaction and providing an error free service beneficial to the clients and their customers is the top priority. Technical support is always available on the website whether you need advice or help of any kind. All the staff are highly experienced and provide you with reassuring and always accessible services. It is an investment that is guaranteed to bring out the best in you along with guaranteed raise in your customer count. Other services are available on the site to protect you from scams. For effective security and a guaranteed beneficial plan avail now by reaching out as soon as possible – for the sooner you are secure, the more exposure you receive and higher is the success and popularity of your website as well as your overall reputation. So hurry now-now is the time and CleanTalk is the place to start building the trust and authenticity you and your brand deserve. Contact us for more details and check out our attractive deals available at easy access on our website – no time to waste if you want your rankings to be the top. Cleantalk is a reliable and trustworthy service that many popular sites have benefited upon and grown with mutually benefitting one another in the process.

      Are you ready to receive an SSL Certificate?

       

       

    • CleanTalk Released a plugin for the Protection of MODX Against Spam and Spam Bots

      CleanTalk Released a plugin for the Protection of MODX Against Spam and Spam Bots

      CleanTalk completed the development extension for the MODX, to protect your online store against spam and spambots.

      The anti-spam extension is compatible with MODX versions v1.x. and approved on the MODX official marketplace.

      This extension allows users to quickly and easily connect to CleanTalk anti-spam service. Its service provides 100% protection from spam bots and provides a simple and convenient commentary/sign-up form for visitors.
      This extension allows protection from automatically distributed spam, as well as from spam bots registrations. The protection method offered by CleanTalk allows users to switch from the methods that trouble the communication (CAPTCHA, question-answer etc.) to a more convenient one.

      CleanTalk saves time and resources spent on moderation and verification of questionable users or comments. Unnoticeable Protection from spam and registration forms, which does not require the visitor to prove who they are, increases the conversion in registration and is not annoying.

      CleanTalk is a cloud service, security module, installed on a website, which sends the behavior parameters of the visitor or spambot. These parameters are estimated, and the service makes a decision – to post a message or to define it as spam and reject.

      On the basis of such checks, the service forms its own list of email addresses used by spambots. Likewise, the registration of visitors is checked. The service adds not only email addresses to the blacklist but also IP addresses and domains of the websites that are promoted through spam mailout. The CleanTalk company developed unique algorithms to assess the behavior of the visitor, and with 100% accuracy, we keep spam messages at bay. All of this happens automatically and requires no action from the administration of the website.

      You can now download CleanTalk Anti-Spam for MODX from the official catalog.

      The Company provides automatic spam protection services for popular CMS: Drupal, IP.Board, IPS Community Suite, Joomla, Magento, MediaWiki, ModX Revolution, MyBB, OpenCart, phpBB, Simple Machines Forum, Typo3, vBulletin, WooCommerce, WordPress, XenForo and API for PHP, Perl, Python, NET.

    • Rearrange of management for “Stop Word” interface

      Stop Word Feature allows you to block comments and messages which contain any word from your Stop-Word List to filter out to enhance spam protection and messages with obscene words blocking.

      The control of interface of the “Stop Word” option has been moved to the main management interface for personal blacklists.
      It allows you to manage all of your BlackLists in the one place.
      So, we also added a counter for requests. It allows you to know a number of blocked/allowed requests by stop words.

      Many spam messages contain some words markers in the text on which you can identify spam.
      For example: Earn per week, 100% free, No credit check, and etc.
      All messages that contain these words will be sent for moderation.

      Thus, using the stop words option, it is possible to improve the protection against spam, including manual spam and block comments with indecent and offensive content.

      To create a list of blocked words you can click here to add particular words or phrases. We also recommend checking comments from time to time and adding new stop words. If you already use your own lists they will be moved automatically.

      Our instruction How to use Stop Word here.

    • CleanTalk SpamFireWall – Option Help

      Hello,

      This is our video guide for SpamFireWall options.

    • 18 ways to improve Speed of your WordPress Website

      18 ways to improve Speed of your WordPress Website

      If your e-commerce website makes the customer wait for more than 3 seconds, don’t expect any sale; says a study. Things are very similar for the business and blogging websites, where website speed significantly affects conversion rate. If your site does not have a quicker approach to load and performs against the other available sites then it will automatically not deliver results you want. Therefore, you must always look for the ways by which you can improve your website’s speed.

      18 best tips to optimize WordPress website’s speed are mentioned here:

      1. Taking Pingdom Test

      One of the effective ways that you can try is doing the Pingdom Website Speed Test for your website. This test will help you in knowing the speed of your website along with finding the reasons that are responsible for the slow speed. This is the ultimate speed test that you can take for your WordPress site.

      All you have to do is to enter the URL of your site and then selecting the location before clicking on the ‘start test’ option.

      With this test, you can get the complete insights of your website with all the facility to access all the amazing features that it offers to your website.

      This performance metrics, in turn, will improve the speed of your website.

      From content to site structure, Pingdom will analysis everything from you.

      2. Select a good host

      One of the major reasons for the slow speed of the sites is due to the insufficient and incapable host provider. Thus to better up the speed of the WordPress website, it is important to hunt for the best host. Considering the shared hosting option may seem good in the beginning but with time it will eventually cost you way too much. The shared host will make the speed of your website really slow or may keep the site down most of the time. It, therefore, becomes a must to have a high-speed host for your WordPress. You may ask the other bloggers which host are they using or you can search the market with the good reputed names by yourself to get the best host that can make things easy, simple yet effectively fast for your WordPress website.

      3. Minimizing the widgets

      Having some amount of ads, widgets and badges are oaky for any blog. No doubt they add a little personality to the blog. Some of the users find the extra ads, widgets, etc. on the blog useful as they can get some beneficial information for them. But most of the users get really annoyed if there are too much of widgets, badges, and ads on your WordPress website.

      The users when encounters too many ads feel that they are being used for no reason. Also, your users are not interested in knowing from where the other visitors are coming on your site. Therefore you must try and keep these ads and widgets on a very minimal note.

      4. Choose a relevant theme

      Having the right framework, theme or template for the website – This may not get your attention in the beginning but sooner you will realize that the template you choose for your website is one of the contributing factors that affect the loading and response time of the website. Don’t go for too much of everything; rather be specific and limited in reaching to your customers with your vision.

      If you have chosen the template or theme that has a lot of extra factors that are of no use those factors will take a significant amount of time to load and hence will reduce the performing time of your site by reducing its speed. Thus don’t go for glitters but choose the real gold for your website.

      5. Image optimization

      All the marketers that work hard for attracting the customers know how important the role of an image is in attracting and retaining the customers. An image with clear and smooth pixels will speak and convey your message way louder than using many words. Thus you must be very specific in choosing the images that you will be uploading on your websites.

      Choosing only the relevant images will also help in reducing the loading time of those images. Unnecessary uploading any type of images on your site will enhance the overall loading time of the site by combining the loading time of all those images. Therefore you must use a minimum number of images that can be uploaded within a specified time limit.

      6. Remove excess buttons for sharing

      It is quite obvious that we all want our website to reach to as many people as possible and to achieve this we are always ready to experiment with a number of options, ways, and methods. In order to improve the visibility of our site, we often tend to do too much on the site. One such thing is using too many share buttons on the website hoping to reach a huge amount of people.

      Using too many sharing options on the website destroy the speed of the site like anything. With too many linking to the various other platforms, you cut down the loading and performing time of the website. Rather you can try and use only the sharing buttons of those sites from where you expect a huge amount of traffic and leads. After doing this, you can remove all the other buttons and can focus on optimizing the use of the available buttons on your website.

      7. Content management

      Website is not a place where you can put each and everything about your business or work. It is a place that gives an idea to your audience about the type of work that you are doing along with the manner in which you target it. Therefore, the role of content management comes into the picture. Knowing and managing the content that you are uploading on your website will help the audience to understand your business and working more effectively and easily.

      Content management will also reduce the efforts and time that you would have to invest for managing, balancing and correcting the data on your website. Along with this basic benefit, you also get the benefit of reduced uploading time of the content which directly affects the loading and response time of your website. Hence, you must only put the relevant data on your website to avoid the unnecessary delays in uploads.

      8. Reduced number of comments

      Your audience will be very much interested in knowing the information that you are putting on your WordPress site in the form of the article. Having some comments on your post is okay and acceptable but allowing any type of comment to be visible in your posts is not acceptable.

      Rather you must reduce the number of comments that appear on your post and manage it to only a relevant number with relevance to the post. This will cut short the time the post will take to upload and also will help the readers to get the genuine idea about the content of the post’s information.

      9. Compressed format

      Remember how easy it is to use the compressed form of data for uploading, transferring, etc. The same ease can be felt when you are dealing with your website. Compress the entire data that you are sending, uploading or transferring from the website. This will reduce the overall time that you require and thereby increasing the loading and response time of your website by making it perform better and effectively.

      10. Enable content delivery network

      It is a not so common fact but the speed of your website depends upon the two major locations. First is the location where you are locating and the second is from where the website is hosted.  If there is not a balance between these two then there will be certain delays in the performance of the website’s loading time.

      A content delivery network helps in managing all the data of your website and putting the files on the static servers which are located very near to the client side. Whenever the client request for any of the service from your site, these servers will help the files reach to the clients as fast as possible. It is just like reaching your destination via the shortest route.

      11. Homepage optimization

      The very first thing that the visitors will notice about your WordPress site is your homepage. The visitors will get the very first impression of your website from the homepage of your website. Thus you must always take necessary steps when optimizing the homepage for the website. Optimizing the homepage and making it relevant to your work will help it get loaded easily and quickly and thereby increasing its speed.

      One of the ways by which you can optimize your website is by removing the irrelevant and unnecessary data from your site. Only keep the data and things that contribute to the relevance of your work.

      12. Ditch hotlinking

      Hotlinking is the process when the other sites directly link from their articles the various links on the images which are available on your website. This direct linking to the various sites adds to the loading time of your website and thereby reduces your performance. This can also cause unnecessary scrap posts being linked with your site’s images that have no relevance to your site and this will downfall your reputation in the market.

      Thus, you must reduce the use of hotlinks as much as you can in order to avoid unnecessary of the linking of other sites to your websites. This will automatically increase your site’s speed.

      13. Optimize database

      This is something that most the people ignore and don’t take into account. As most of the people concentrate only on the outer side of the website and don’t really bother with what’s going on inside. But along with managing the outer performance of the website, it is equally important to balance the internal functioning of the site.

      Optimizing the database of your website is one of the tasks that you must take care when trying the various ways of improving the speed of your WordPress site. You can try the plugins like WP-Optimize or WP-Database Manager for enhancing the process of database management.

      14. Fix all broken points:

      One of the easiest ways to make your website work and load really fast is by fixing all the broken points that it has. For this you would have to analyze the website on regular basis and then to note down all the points where you find the performance of the website is lacking. This can help in fixing the damaging part and thus to make the website perform better on those fronts.

      15. Minify your CSS and JS files:

      You can make your website perform faster and better by minifying the various CSS and JS files available. The process to minify the CSS and JS helps in removing the white space, combining the various files along with reducing the number of unnecessary comments on the posts. This in return helps the site to get rid of the not so necessary complications and help it to load and perform at a much faster speed than ever.

      16. Try faster plugins

      To improve the speed of your website, it is recommended to use less number of plugins. No doubt plugins are important for the speed of the website but that does not mean that you have to use each and every plugin that you know or come across. Rather you should select and reduce the number of plugins to only those that actually contribute in the enhancement of the website’s speed.

      17. Disable trackbacks

      If your WordPress site is accessing the trackbacks, then it is obvious that it will interact with the other blogs and blogging sites that are equipped with the same. However, this interaction may not seem any trouble initially but will increase the loading time after some time. Whenever any of the other blogs and blogging site mentions your site anywhere, you will get a notification for the same. This will keep updating the data in the post. It doesn’t require much of an explanation that too much of data on the post can reduce its performing time by increasing the loading time.

      Thus to avoid any such problem, it is always advisable to turn off the trackbacks by making adjustments in the settings of your website.

      18. Use the best plugin for cache

      Plugins are one of the essential factors that help any site to reduce its loading time and enhance its speed. Just like the other sites, WordPress also uses a number of plugins for the same. However, it is always beneficial to use those plugins that are in the caching category. These plugins provide all the required benefits to the sites that it need to improve their speed and reduce the loading time.

      Out of the many, W3 Total Cache is the most popular one that is trending in the market and is being used by all the leading blogging sites. The other popular cache plugins that are used are WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, Comet Cache, etc. These can be easily installed along with offering easy and reliable use.

      These are some of the basic ways that can enhance the speed of your WordPress site along with delivering you better and optimized results. How do you keep your website speed and load optimized, any other way? So, CleanTalk optimizes their anti-spam and security plugins to improve your website speed and these plugins are one of the fastest.

    • 20 Tips for Effective SEO and Content Management for WordPress

      Undoubtedly, WordPress has immensely outgrown its inception image. WordPress has moved from supporting the blogs to be the best platform for high-end websites. Even today no other platform can beat the Content Management functions of WordPress. As a website platform, you can extend and expand a WordPress website functionally to a tremendous extent. Built-in search functions and SEO enables each page to be optimized right from inception.  

      The search engines get cruel with websites. The best WordPress theme and most creative content would fall flat if it is not optimized. WordPress powers you to build excellent websites do not let them get lost in the sea of websites without SEO and Content Management.

      SEO and Content Management tip for a WordPress Website:

      1.  Create Clean Permalinks:

      WordPress is notorious for creating irrelevant permalinks (URL structure). By default, WordPress inserts the day and name into the URL making it unreadable. Google and other search engines rank the URLs that are optimized. The title and keywords in the post URL are liked more by the search engines.  

      Check out the permalink setting and check the “Post name” option. It is clean and gives you the liberty to add the keyword in the URL. When you change the permalink after the posts have gone live and the links have been shared, you must redirect the preceding link to the new permalink. Now that the permalink has been modified you will not be able to direct traffic using the older links

      2. Always have a Focus Keyword

      Keywords are the indispensable part of any web content. Google and other search engines are merely algorithms (agree they are quite strong), and they rank your content based on the keywords. Insert the focus keyword naturally and never overstuff your content with the keywords.

      Publishing long content, well-researched content or regular post will not drive sustainable traffic unless they are keyword optimized. Extensive research is required to find out the keywords that are relevant to your content and will rank it higher. Avoid the occurrence of any negative focus keyword in the blog comments section. It is not in your control, but you can use CleanTalk anti-spam plugin to keep your website from ranking high in negative keywords.

      3. Optimize the Meta descriptions

      SEO ranking is not directly linked with Meta description but a keyword rich Meta description increases the CTR. Indirectly a good CTR brings you into the focus of search engines, and they alter your rankings. You can set the Meta description manually using the Yoast SEO plugin.

      Google allows a limit of 156 characters on the Meta description ensure you create and put pretty content with the focus keyword. The focus keyword is set to bold on the search engines producing even more engagement. You must include the power words or the words you see in competitor AdWords Meta description.

      4. Never miss the Header Tags

      Header tags are crawled by the search engines before they craw the entire content. A heading with proper tags is an excellent practice. The header tags H1, H2, H3, create a hierarchy as H1 is the most important. Ensure the H1 has your focus keyword and you can add multiple H2 and H3 in your content.

      WordPress automatically assigns the title to your post but make sure the header tags make the content more readable rather than confusing. Many WordPress themes do have the header tag insertion integrated, and you may not have to depend on any plugin.

      5. Focus keyword in title and first paragraph

      As discussed in point 2, Focus keyword is very important for your content. What makes the more significant impact is the position of the keyword. A focus keyword in the title and first paragraph increases the stay time and ranks your post higher in the search engine.

      The web crawlers check the content from top to bottom. When they find the focus keyword on top, they rank you higher. If you use Yoast SEO plugin, it intimates you whenever you do not follow this practice in the post.

      6. Content word count:

      Genuinely speaking, producing a high-quality content is best you can do for your website. More extended content work better than the short contents. The effectiveness of content length plays an important role in rankings. Long form content provides you the advantage of long-tail keywords. Experts have noticed that the traffic from all the long-tail variations will surpass focus keyword traffic.

      The average content length that helps rank well is more than 2500 words, and lots of stats prove long-form content works.

      7. Create short URLs

      Clean and structured websites are loved by the search engines. Short URLs are the best form of a clean website. A well-defined URL helps you improve the CTR.  A short URL gives you lead ahead of your competitors. A WordPress website automatically creates shorter URL’s, but you can also go ahead and shorten them.

      Always remember you cannot keep two URL names same, they have to be unique.

      8. Use optimized Image File Names

      Must admit this is not significant, but you must never do it wrong. A little boost this Smart image file names practice provides becomes substantial when the competition is close.

      Three points must be considered while naming the files:

      • Name them with actual words rather than the names they get from the device they were clicked from.
      • Use hyphens in the title.
      • Add the keyword in the file name.

      9. Add Interlinks

      Linking is important between your posts. Link to your landing page or another post by adding Interlinks in the content. It increases the stay time on your website when you provide useful and relevant links. Recommended is to keep at least 3-5 interlinks on your site.

      WordPress offers you a hyperlink option to insert interlinks and maximize your websites stay time.

      10. Add High Domain Authority External Links

      While interlinks increase the website stay time, you must consider adding some external links to authority sites. This strategy helps your WordPress SEO and puts your website across as one that connects to high-quality content with authority sites.

      Make sure you add two high domain authority website links in your content. You can start connecting to the other brand and try to get free traffic from their social media sharing

      11. Sitemaps

      Sitemaps do not directly assist you in SEO but using them assists web crawlers to utilize the hierarchy and structure of your WordPress site. Having a sitemap ensures your website gets crawled better. They are not a must for the site but did you know they help you with more detailed reporting data. You may utilize the data plugin the weak areas. The Yoast SEO plugin can automatically generate your website sitemap.

      Create your XML sitemap file and submit it to Google Search Console so that you can access additional data on the status of your WordPress site.

      12. Build backlinks

      Backlinks are an essential part of white hat SEO. Search engines use backlinks for passing link information from one website to another ensuring the authenticity. When a high domain authority website links to you, it earns you a lot of online credibilities. Backlinks are a significant factor for ranking.

      Search engines rank your WordPress website high if the number of referring domains is more. Developing more backlinks threatens your website for security issues. Phishing website tries and gets backlinks from your site to improve their site’s PageRank such websites tend to send spam and viruses and may damage your reputation online. CleanTalk security plugin protects your website from such attacks.

      13. Content that is always liked:

      Work hard to develop content that needs to be referred now and then. A strategy like this gets you sustainable organic traffic. Best practice of maintaining the content is updating it quite often so that it ranks high and is always offering more to its readers.

      Developing evergreen content works long term, and you can keep sharing it again and again over social media and get backlinks. Make your content long lasting by writing on topics that meet a need, high-quality unique content, readable, engage the audience for a long time and does not outdate quickly.

      14. Negative SEO

      It can be lethal to your years of hard work. You competitors or other websites might try to tarnish your reputation but create backlinks from your website or spam commenting on your blog bringing you the bad name.

      You must be vigilant and monitor any such attacks on your website. There have been instances when the site was attacked overnight and developed terrible backlinks that took years to clean. You may use additional plugins to stop negative SEO.

      15. Local SEO

      Never ever skip local SEO. Register your website in existing local portals like yellow pages and Google business to develop your own customer database from their rankings.

      As both such websites are free and provide you organic results, you may top their list and rank high while someone is searching for local services.

      16. Website Speed

      Did you know Google has openly declared the time it takes to load your website affects your ranking? Build a beautiful but heavy website may not work in your favor. Google bought this element into your ranking because they know visitors will not stay on a site longer if it is heavy. High speed is the better for SEO and helps you rank in search engines. You can help your website speed with CleanTalk plugin that has the function of Spam Fire Wall.

      The tendency of people, who use Google is to abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load. Optimize your sites, use plugins but never make it too heavy for the mobile or the desktop.

      17. Track Keyword rankings

      Never stick to one focus keyword. Keep checking the trend of relevant keyword that can bring you stable traffic.

      You must update your content or create new content if the focus keyword ranking has shifted down. Keywords are ranked on the basis of how many searches are made by web searches using these set of words.

      If you spend time enough time on creating optimized content, then you must try to use it for long terms. Updating the content on new keywords is an excellent strategy for long-term content.

      18. Comment management

      It may make or mar your website reputation. With the cutthroat competition, sledding other website reputation is very common. Competitor website may spam your site with comments, emails, and subscriptions. All this may work against you as nothing is hidden online. You cannot do anything about it once the damage is done. To control the spam of comments and content, you can use the CleanTalk anti-spam plugin that has the function of stop words.

      19. WordPress SEO Plugin

      What if we tell you that specific WordPress SEO plugins are inherently capable of creating SEO along with the website creation? Have a complete control on your website with Plugins like Yoast SEO or All-In-One-SEO pack that have end-to-end optimization potential.

      20. Title tags

      You must have your “focus keyword” in the title tag. Placing the Focus keyword at the beginning of the title is most recommended. It may not always be possible, but you must still put it somewhere in the title. The Google search engine can display only 65 characters of Title so make sure the focus keyword appears within that limit.

      Make most of the above tips to rank your website and content higher in the search engines and improve engagement. Some say SEO is dead but it is not dead has just changed. If you are starting with WordPress, you may be overwhelmed with the tips. SEO and content is a grey area, and you need to keep trying till your website hits the jackpot rank. The above tips have helped various websites go a long way, now it is your chance!!

    • Changes in the logic for the spam_check API

      We plan to launch API logic changes for the method “spam_check“. Parameter Appears will be modified.

      Parameter Appears — shows presence of record in the CleanTalk Blacklist Database.

      How it works right now — “appears”:1 returns in cases when spam activity was registered 3 and more times no matter when it happened even if this activity was a year or more back. It raised questions from our clients: why the method returns 1 when the CleanTalk website shows “Not in list” status?

      How it will be — “appears”:1 will be displayed only when a record has “blacklisted” status in the CleanTalk Blacklist Database, and will match its status on the website. If it is necessary for you to get information as it was before, that is based on the parameter “frequency” = 3 and higher, it still shows spam activity independently from time.

      Changes will be launched on Nov 6, 2017.

      If you have any questions then, please, contact us and we will gladly assist you.