*** This post offers my own opinions and hasn’t been influenced by the hosting company at all. There are affiliate links in this post, which help us keep the site alive stay caffeinated. No pricing changes because of affiliate links. ***

Most of my business sites, including this one have been hosted by Wired Tree since almost forever. Wired tree offered (initially) great prices on vps and superior customer service. Something changed, I’m not sure what, and although the techs are friendly enough, they seem not to be as thorough as they once were, omitting or not even reading tickets, contributing to downtime for myself and a number of clients. Problems became more prevalent and the answer to the problem was always, you need something ‘more’. Which almost always meant more $$. (For those of you who may not know me, I’m not a tightwad when it comes to hosting)Cheap generally equals lousy hosting, less than pleasant experiences with tech support and more downtime than anyone needs. But I found my self inching toward a hosting rate for my sites, that I found untenable. So I started looking around (yeah kinda like kicking tires on new cars)

EIG WANTS TO OWN THE HOSTING WORLD

Here’s what I found.
1. EIG (Endurance International Group) that vast conglomerate, has purchased a whole wad of companies

I don’t have the ‘before’  shot for this one, apparently I was so ill with it I just deleted it. But I call this WINNING. And how did I do this you ask?

The Unicorn Hunt For Fast Speedy Hosting

It all started with a test at Fast Comet Hosting. (because you can read all the reviews you want and still know nothing)  I put a few sites onto shared ssd ecommerce hosting. At the rock bottom price of  $6.95 per month, with 45 days  guaranteed money back, a free move and well for that I could lose 7 bucks so why not try. I WAS AMAZED. SIMPLY AMAZED. They added free cloudflare, free varnish caching and their own superduper firewall, to my own configuration of WP-Rocket (caching) and Sucuri Cloud Proxy.  Additionally, the control panel we all know and love is there and they offer some pretty nifty freebies as well as a coupon for WP-Rocket (if you don’t own it this is your chance to get it for a steal). I personally was so impressed with the speed at which tickets are answered, and chat is handled  that I decided to move everything over (with the exception of a couple sites that I still have elsewhere). So now we’re hosted on a Cloud VPS at less than 1/2 of what I was paying at Wired Tree, with so much more speed, and I’m not out in the wind doing all the work myself (I’m not lazy but dang its nice to have someone else deal with all the server stuff)

Now I’ll be remiss if I don’t tell you that some things didn’t go too easily, since I was using Sucuri and cloudflare, but those issues were between those 2 apps, and with a phone call was cleared.  Getting ads to run with cloudflare is a little tricky but its doable as well.

All in all I could NOT BE MORE HAPPY, AND its my recommendation that if you’re paying 4 arms and 2 legs for hosting, or even paying a reasonable price for hosting  at one of the EIG  owned hosts, that you don’t wait, you move and move now.  I’d be willing to bet you can’t get these speeds (even with the ads I run) anywhere else.

So you have options, Shared SSD hosting (starts at $4.95) Cloud VPS (starts at 49.95) or even Fully Managed Dedicated Servers. 

And now for a word about UNLIMITED HOSTING.

******There is NO SUCH THING AS UNLIMITED HOSTING.

Above all, you should read “unlimited” as “don’t worry if you have a typical website or a blog”. But if you have a popular or big website, then there’s no “unlimited” for you. But people love the feeling that the word “unlimited” gives them. And hosts just put down what people WANT to hear. But the hosts do not mean it; they’d go broke if they actually provisioned unlimited hosting for everyone.

Shared hosts’ basic plans are not supposed to be for clients with hundreds of visitors per day, even if they say it’s “unlimited”. The same is about disk space. It depends on price and other limited plans (if any) offered by the company. But I would not expect to store more than 10-30 GB on shared hosting for the same default price.

Usually, if your websites utilizes more disk space or bandwidth, then you are contacted by the hosting company to upgrade your account. For some reason, people don’t expect it on “unlimited” plans. So, it makes sense to contact  the company’s support and ask them about how limited their “unlimited” plans are This statement applies NO MATTER WHERE you are hosting.

Note that it may turn out that “unlimited” plans of some hosts can be even more limited than limited plans of other hosts. (Hope I did not confuse you with this circle of words ) . You may just contact a hosting company which offers unlimited plans and ask it directly on how much  of the resources you can actually count on.

Again, if you have a high traffic site or a large site. NO UNLIMITED HOSTING is going to hold you, so face it and pick a VPS or Dedicated Server if need be.

I’m  Winning ‘Yall! And You can too! Feel free to reach out via my contact form or project inquiry if you need to know more.

UPDATE: FASTCOMET has made many changes in its shared hosting.  While I can still recommend them for  new bloggers, if you have an aged site, *been online for a few years*  I can’t say its going to be your best option. Check our  RESOURCES PAGE FOR OUR RECOMMENDED HOSTING.

The post Affordable Speedy Hosting Is Not A Unicorn! appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

Problems Finding Data In the Default Google Analytics Dashboard

I talk to bloggers every day. (no big surprise there right?) And the most asked about subject of my conversations is analytics. Google Analytics to be exact. It seems, for a large portion of my clients and bloggers that I talk to, Google analytics is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Hours are spent looking at the analytics dashboard trying to figure out visitors vs pageviews, where their traffic is coming from and what pages or posts are the most popular.

I’ve tried to answer those questions by pointing them to the appropriate areas in the dashboard. But still, I see them staring blankly at their numbers. Mostly clueless as to what they’re seeing. As you probably know, Google Analytics isn’t exactly beginner friendly. Its taken me years to drill down to what the most important parts of my data are and actually taking classes to try to understand the terminology expressed in the reports. I’m no Einstein, by the way, so the process has been, long and boring at points. But when I finally had my Aha moment, it all came together for me.

You’re saying you don’t have years to learn, and even less motivation to get into classes devoted to Analytics, you just want the good stuff! You want to be able to accurately report your pageviews and visitors, you want to know where your traffic is coming from. What search terms are people using to find your posts. What are your most popular posts.  There has to be a better way!

Well there is!

I’ve been working over the past several months to give you a Google Analytics custom dashboard. One that is going to give you those things you need in a snapshot form. A dashboard you can look at quickly and see your most popular posts, where your social traffic is coming from and more! And the best part? There’s no wordpress plugin (you know how I feel about those) and no coding needed on your part. You only need a Google Analytics account that’s tracking your blog with the universal tracking code.

To grab this dashboard for your own, you simply need to open your Google Analytics account in another tab, click on  the link below and add the dashboard to your current view. (you’ll be asked to select the view, if you have more than one) And voila! Now you can take a look at what you want to see all on one dashboard, anytime you need to see it and for any period you need to see it (the date area at the top of the page on the right).

So what’s holding you up? Download the Heart+Soul Blogger Dashboard using this link ! And start seeing your data like you want to TODAY! Its FREE!

Let me know in  comments below that you’re using  custom dashboard and how much you love it!  Share this post  and show me your links you’ll be entered to win a lifetime subscription to the Aha Academy®!

Got more questions about Google Analytics?  Ask me, I’ll have an answer for you.

The post How To Get The Data You Need From Google Analytics appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

The post Write Powerful Blog Posts In 6 Steps appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

Since about version 3.7 the WordPress Auto Update function has been included in all WordPress sites. The problem is that there is no way to simply disable WordPress auto update. (unless you have installed a new blog and you use the checkboxes to do so initially on install)

I think everyone should have a say in the WordPress (and plugin) updates that are applied to their sites. Not offering an options-interface to this critical feature on the part of the WordPress core development team is , in my opinon  a step in the wrong direction. I understand WHY they added the feature, but I don’t understand WHY there’s not an interface on the user side to turn it off! 

The scenario below happens almost daily to a client, if it hasn’t happened to you, it could.

You begin your day by checking your WordPress Site and what? A white screen! You can’t login and you can’t find your hosting support. The blogger’s nightmare. Now what?

Well firstly, if this has not happened to you, you can add this code into your wp-config.php file just above the line that says That’s all! Happy Blogging!  Just save after inserting and you’re golden. No chance of having a plugin or incomplete update  killing your site.

[pastacode lang=”markup” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”]

define( 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true );

[/pastacode]

If you HAVE  an issue with the white screen of death, my advice is to get in touch here and let us investigate and fix your issue properly. There are a number of steps and missing any of them or not doing them properly can insure your site won’t function at all.

Does working inside your WordPress installation ‘freak’ you out? Totally afraid you’ll blow your site out of the water? Fear Not!  We can help, just visit our Project Inquiry and we’ll get you taken care of in a blink of the eye.

The post Disable WordPress Auto Update appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

The Problem:  After setting up Yoast WordPress SEO sitemap, and clicking the link for it you get the dreaded Yoast Sitemap 404 error!

Fix Yoast Sitemap 404 error with these snippets.

While this issue has never been a problem for me in the past, for some users it has been a  real pain. Recently several of my  clients ran into the issue of getting a 404 error for their sitemaps generated by Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin. After trying a few things, I was able to figure out the solution. In this article, I am going to show you how to fix the Yoast sitemap 404 error in right in the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. There’s a seperate fix if you’re using W3 Total Cache and have the same problem.

It is important that you understand that this issue is most likely caused by poorly coded theme function or another plugin. But it’s easy enough to fix. Yoast’s plugin works fine on my sites. I use custom coded themes and plugins.

First be certain you have no conflicting plugins (any plugin that might generate an xml sitemap). If you have one, disable and delete it.

Then you should  open your .htaccess file (you can actually do this from WordPress SEO plugin / Edit Files option) and simply add the following code in there:

[pastacode lang=”markup” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual” manual=”%23%20WordPress%20SEO%20-%20Sitemap%20Rewrite%20Fix%0A%3CIfModule%20mod_rewrite.c%3E%0ARewriteEngine%20On%0ARewriteBase%20%2F%0ARewriteRule%20%5Esitemap_index.xml%24%20%2Findex.php%3Fsitemap%3D1%20%5BL%5D%0ARewriteRule%20%5E(%5B%5E%2F%5D%2B%3F)-sitemap(%5B0-9%5D%2B)%3F.xml%24%20%2Findex.php%3Fsitemap%3D%241%26sitemap_n%3D%242%20%5BL%5D%0A%3C%2FIfModule%3E%0A%23%20END%20WordPress%20SEO%20-%20Sitemap%20Rewrite%20Fix”/]

Save and then go to WordPress Settings/Permalinks and re-save your permalink structure.  You should be able to see your sitemap index when you click  You can find your XML Sitemap here. When you submit your sitemap to google INSERT only the  portion of the url that is /sitemap_index.xml. (BE SURE YOU REMOVE THE PERIOD)

If  you have W3 Total Cache active, that is preventing 404 errors for static files to go through to WordPress. Update to the latest version of W3 Total Cache or add, under the browser cache page, this exemption:

[pastacode lang=”markup” message=”credit: Yoast” highlight=”” provider=”manual” manual=”sitemap(_index%7C%5B0-9%5D%2B)%3F.xml”/]

Save and then go to WordPress Settings/Permalinks and re-save your permalink structure.  You should be able to see your sitemap index when you click  You can find your XML Sitemap here. When you submit your sitemap to google INSERT only the  portion of the url that is /sitemap_index.xml. (BE SURE YOU REMOVE THE PERIOD)

Does working inside your WordPress installation ‘freak’ you out? Totally afraid you’ll blow your site out of the water? Fear Not!  We can help, just visit our Project Inquiry and we’ll get you taken care of in a blink of the eye.

The post Two Easy Ways To Fix Yoast’s WordPress SEO Sitemap 404 Error appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

Occasionally you need to move from one url (domain)  to another and you don’t want to lose all the traffic that you’ve worked to get on the old domain.

After you’ve done the grunt work of copying files, folders and database (s) you need to do a good old fashioned 301redirect so that when folks visit http://yourolddomain.com/link they land on http://yournewdomain.com/samelink.

1. Go to your .htaccess file in your cpanel of your OLD domain (this is a hidden file so be sure you have the show hidden files box checked in the file manager)

2. Then use the CODE EDITOR  to add the following at the very beginning of the file.  If you’re not using www on your domain names, be sure you drop that from the items as needed.

[pastacode lang=”markup” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”]

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.oldsite.com 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newsite.com/$1 [R=301,L] 
# END WordPress

[/pastacode]

3. Remove any other lines that may be present in your .htaccess for the old site.

4. Save your work.

Does working inside your WordPress installation ‘freak’ you out? Totally afraid you’ll blow your site out of the water? Fear Not! We can help, just visit our Project Inquiry and we’ll get you taken care of in a blink of the eye. Generally I advise bloggers against making changes to their .htaccess file unless they’re very experienced. This is a simple change that most can do. However, if the thought of changing anything in your htaccess makes you queasy,  feel free to use our project request form and we’ll  get in touch as soon as possible.

The post How To 1 to 1 Redirect WordPress To A New Domain appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

The most helpful info I’ve gotten, however, was right from the infographic below.Timing IS everything, from comedy to relationships to blogging.  Managing Social Media has to be the toughest part of the blogging business. Mastering it (if there is such a thing) is elusive to many, but it seems that it all boils down to time.

From Linkedin and Facebook to G+ and your blog, following these timings could help improve your posts getting noticed! Of course there’s no guarantee or absolute one size fits all, but experiment. Find what works for you based on these timings. Use this guide for what it is. A Guide. Test and Retest. Now get out there and do your homework, test it. Then let me know what your results are!

courtesy fannit.com

The post Social Media Timing appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

While Google’s new Penguin and Panda algorithms are not perfect, they seem to have been responsible for major Google internet search result cleanup. It’s about time right?!

Unless the site you’re looking for has dealt with a shady SEO company, you’ll no longer turn up “garbage” results filled with gibberish or porn/gambling links. Nor will you find page after page of poorly-disguised affiliate blogs built around the keyword you were searching for.

While this is good news for those looking for quality Google search result, if you happen to be one of those people with  blogs and/or affiliate sites, it could be bad news for you.

How can you prevent your blog from dropping off the map, figuratively speaking?

Simple. Make sure you are create original content.

That’s all there is to it!

Here’s how to write your very best original content…

• do your research for  facts not found on any other site (built around your SEO keyword, of course).
• Give your blog posts your own, unique voice. Write as you would speak and make sure to use language familiar to your audience.
• Try to avoid clichés. These can often result in false Google penalties, since Google bots may read clichés as copies of other peoples’ works.
• If you outsource your work, hire a reputable ghostwriter to create original “work-for-hire” pieces.

In addition, every page on your website or blog should include:

• One single, specific topic
• A unique, optimized title that will show up in search results
• An original meta description for the snippet

A Word About Keywords 

Keywords are still extremely important in Google optimization, and you still have to beware of “keyword-loading” – that is, forcing keywords into text when it doesn’t feel natural. When picking the best keywords, use the ones your visitors are likely to search with. For example, if you were looking for cotton tshirts, you wouldn’t search for “tshirts non-synthetic” – you’d look up “cotton tshirts”, right?

Not sure what you’re doing with SEO and content? Need an extra SEO boost for your website and/or blog?  Let us help you! Contact us today !

The post How to Prevent Your Site From Falling Off the Search Engine Map appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

 You CAN lock down the WordPress login with some .htaccess rules to prevent unauthorized login attempts.

There have now been several large scale WordPress wp-login.php brute force attacks, coming from a large amount of compromised IP addresses spread across the world since April of last year. A large botnet of around 90,000 compromised servers has been attempting to break into WordPress websites by continually trying to guess the username and password to get into the WordPress admin dashboard. We’ve helped numbers of clients get their sites back and running but you can stop some of these attacks  dead in their tracks.

To save your blog from WordPress hackers you need to take some solid step which assures security of your blog.
This article discusses how to restrict you wordpress admin access and provide an extra layer of security both to your wp-admin folder, and wp-login.php file.
Did you know that you can restrict your WordPress admin usage according to giving right to certain IP addresses? You can, and I’m going through step by step just how to do that

Determining Who Will Have Access.

Here you’re going to block every IP except a select few. In case your IP is dynamic, it may not be the best option for you and if you have a lot of users that you allow access to your blog, this could become time consuming. But,if you are the only author on your blog, and you don’t allow registrations anyway – this will be rather simple. Begin by making a spreadsheet in google or in excel or your spreadsheet program of choice. List the persons who should have access to your login page by name  and save, next we’ll add more information to this file.

Creating your .htaccess

First, get your IP address. Go to whatsmyip.com and make a note of your IP address. Have anyone who NEEDS access to your admin area of your blog do the same and add these to the names of who you wish to have access to your login page to your spreadsheet and save it in a safe place.

Next, visit your cpanel file manager or ftp to your site to edit your .htaccess file . (Note in cpanel and in ftp you’ll need to be able to view ‘hidden files’ be sure your settings are set so that you can.
Open the .htaccess file and you should see something similar to this

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Don’t be concerned if your file isn’t exactly like this, particularly if you have caching plugins or your wordpress resides in its own folder. (The file will be slightly different or longer.) Make a backup of this file BEFORE you make changes. Just copy and paste to a text file and save it to your computer.

The .htaccess is a distributed configuration file, and is how Apache handles configuration changes on a per-directory basis.
WordPress uses this file to manipulate how Apache serves files from its root directory, and subdirectories thereof. Most notably, WP modifies this file to be able to handle pretty permalinks.

At the very beginning of this file add these lines exactly. the lines with # are comment lines leave them there so that you KNOW what the following line means if you ever need to change this in the future.

[pastacode lang=”markup” message=”” highlight=”” provider=”manual”]

<files wp-login.php>
order deny,allow
deny from all

# whitelist Your First IP address
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

#whitelist Your Second IP Address
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

#whitelist Your Third IP Address
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

</files>

[/pastacode]

You can add more lines to whitelist, just copy one of the #whitelist line sections and change the ip and the number if necessary. You can remove all but your own if you desire but be sure the closing </files> remains or YOU will be locked out of your own site.
Save the file and close it, reupload if you’re working by ftp or simply close in cpanel.
That’s it! You’re done! And now you admin pages and login are visible only to you and your chosen few.

There are several other methods of restricting access to your wp-admin and this is but one. We’re always happy to discuss your security needs.

Does working inside your WordPress installation ‘freak’ you out? Totally afraid you’ll blow your site out of the water? Fear Not!  We can help, just visit our Project Inquiry and we’ll get you taken care of in a blink of the eye.

The post Lock Down & Limit WordPress Login Attempts Using .htaccess appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.

Since today is Valentine’s Day, I’d thought I’d share the love with some of my favorite color pallettes from COLOURlovers  and links back to the original artist. You can see these inspirations in use in our portfolio. If you’re out to make  a statement with your website, do it with color, be sure you bookmark your favorites !

Myuri Scarlet- Aurora Ombre

Ombre is HOT. Pick a color then find its closest five neighbors in tone and tint. Aurora Ombre is a great example, just google ombre and you’ll find thousands of examples!

evad-World of Color

Bright tones are joyful. Bring life to your site using spots of Bright tones. This pallette was pulled from a Walt Disney Letterhead. Naturally!

Demonbunny-writing on the wall

Sometimes  a neutral pallette is  what you need to calm your spirit and get your point across.  This one says it beautifully!

zlaika-missoni ombre

Ahhhhhhhh the Italians !! (you really didn’t think I could leave them out did you?) Missoni is young and vibrant and this pallette says it all!

So there ya have it. Some of my favorite color pallettes. What are yours? Feel free to link them up in the comments!

The post COLOURlovers Inspiration appeared first on Heart+Soul Design Studio.