Google has one of the most accurate malware scanning features built into its browser and search engine. Google can also penalize your website pretty severely if it detects malware, so as soon as you are notified itâ€s time to act quickly, not only because it will ruin all your advertising and SEO but also because youâ€ll lose traffic dramatically. Being labelled as having malware on your site means one of two things i.e. either your website was hacked and malware was installed by the hacker on purpose or there is a coding problem. The chances of it being a false positive is one in fifty.

Take your site down

When your website has been tagged as having malware on it, search engine optimization should be the least of your worries. So, donâ€t think too much about taking your site down for the next 24 to 48 hours to fix the error or issue. Once down start by verifying the issue by visiting: http://google.com/webmasters/, here you should get some information about the malicious code causing the problem.

 

The most common types of malware and solutions

The two most common reasons why your website may be labelled as spam is either because you have out of date software running or have an open redirect in place. There are also other reasons like SQL injections, infected admin computer and coding errors. But for the sake of simplicity weâ€ll just address two of the most common ones below.

Outdated software: Make sure that you check if you have the latest updated version of the operating system, blogging platform software, plugins, applications and content management system. Turn on the ‘auto-update†feature for each of these things and they should auto update and youâ€ll never have this problem again. The updates should also patch up any vulnerabilities that may exist.

Open Redirects: These are usually coded to allow the website to redirect visitors to another website. Usually, an old website will have a redirect setup to take people to a new URL that hosts the new website. This is often the case when a company changes its domain and business name. But hackers will abuse these open redirects by adding their own malware or spam pages. The easiest way to fix this issue is to check your software and see if the option for open redirects has been enabled. If itâ€s turned on by default you may want to turn it off. You can also code the page to prohibit open redirects.

Using the QualysGuard tool

Even though Google does allow you to learn a little bit about why your website has been labelled as having malware if you are not tech minded you will have issues. Most people who are not programmers will have a problem detecting and eventually fixing problems that are not any one of the ones discussed above.

QualysGuard is a free third party tool that allows webmasters to scan their whole website for suspicious code and malware. The scan is easy to start manually and it will crawl your whole site for malware. It will also execute a number of JavaScript codes.

The program works by emulating a real browser working from a userâ€s machine. Even though this assures accurate analysis it will mess up your web analytics statics because the automated system will show up as a number of individual visits to your website. So, youâ€ll need to setup your analytics software in advance to filter all of the toolâ€s visits to your website.

Once the system has compiled a complete analysis report it is emailed to you. In most cases the average computer user should be able to understand the findings of the system and run appropriate fixes. However, some fixes that require recoding in PHP or MySql will require an experienced programmer.

Get off Googleâ€s Blacklist

Once you are 100% sure that your website is free from viruses, Trojans and malware, itâ€s time to submit your website to Google for reconsideration. This is the only way to get off the blacklist. Head over to Google†webmaster tools and navigate down to ‘Request a Review†then submit your website again. It takes a few minutes. But it takes Google around two weeks to get around to whitelisting your website.

If you want to know more about this please visit - http://www.smart-seo.com.au

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Image author owned

Nathanael Vanderkolk is a qualified SEO optimisation specialist who has spent the last fifteen years optimizing websites for Smart SEO Clients. He currently runs his own SEO business based in Sydney.

Learn From Social Media Sites

Have you noticed how adeptly social media sites such as Pinterest use visual marketing? Why try to describe the perfect apple crumble cake when you can show a mouth-watering picture of one? As the old saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and in the world of online marketing, a picture may be worth much more than that if it helps to attract customers and generate more revenue for your company.  Facebook and Instagram, like Pinterest, are also driven by photographs and images to illustrate the life, interests and background of a person or a company. If you learn from popular social media sites such as these, you will have more success attracting a following through the use of visual marketing.

Let Your Followers Know You Are Real

In the world of online marketing it can be hard for customers to distinguish the line between virtual reality and actual reality. That is why you should let your followers know you are real by including a picture of you and your staff in the “About Us” section of your profile or website page. Your followers will automatically feel a sense of connection to you by simply being able to see who you are and that you are in fact real people. Depending on your target audience and the nature of your business you can make this picture professional, casual, or even humorous. Humor is a great way to utilize loyalty marketing and can make you more likeable to your followers. As all good online marketers know, if your followers like you they are more prone to be loyal to you and to share your page with their friends.

Make Your Product Look Different

Making your product stand out and look different is one of the most challenging tasks that a marketer will face. You need to make your product memorable if you expect to attract a loyal customer base, and you can do this by using visual marketing to your advantage. You can incorporate humor into your product images or use modest, child-like drawings to simplify your products and make them memorable. Whatever method you choose to use, stick with it and try to use that same type of visual marketing across the board so that people will immediately recognize it when they see it.

Use Bold Visuals To Draw Attention

If you are having a difficult time getting the attention of your customers, try using bold visuals to catch their eye. Whether you choose to incorporate humorous, beautiful or creative images, just make sure that they appeal to your target audience and attract more followers to your site.

If you feel like you have reached a stand-still in the world of online marketing, incorporate more visual marketing into your technique and you are bound to see positive results.

Attached Images:

•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/c/ca/caesantana/1407384_color_pencil.jpg

Dorian Travers is a contributor for The Marketing Robot. He keeps his readers informed on all things business.

One thing that you might not have considered was the difficulty of getting photos of the animals. Animals, by their very nature, are not exactly the type that are going to sit there and let you pose them and snap every photo you’d like of them. You can’t even get humans to do that most of the time, and they can understand what you’re saying.

So, what’s a person to do when they can’t get their hands on the proper pose or animal for a photo? It’s pretty simple. Royalty free stock images gives you a wide range of options when it comes to animals, especially if you’re going after common pet breeds for your dog photos.

You can even find exotic wildlife photographers selling stock photography, if you’re looking to add a wild flair to your animal centric website. Exotic wildlife is very hard to get good photographs of. If you’re running a rescue, you don’t necessarily want to be bothering your animals, especially if you are a rehab facility. If you don’t commonly have exotic animal access, then chances are you won’t be prepared for those once in a lifetime shots that come up from time to time.

Instead of spending all day crawling around in a field, trying to get dog photographs, turn to royalty free stock photography to meet your most pressing needs. Whether it’s getting that super cute image for your front page, or you just need to find something to put on one of your species information pages, you’ll be able to pick up a stock photo.

Once you get started working with stock photos, you’ll be wondering just how you managed to do without them. It’s a rather great way to save time so you have more time to spend with animals. After all, would you rather be stuck in a room working on photo editing because you couldn’t quite get the right shot, or would you rather be out playing with the animals that you’re paid to take care of. It’s pretty easy to tell that you should go with the stock photography as a way to open up your time for the important things. Even if you do have your own photographer on staff, you can always give them a bit of a break and help them out by getting all of these stock photos together.

Attached Images:

•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-group-five-dogs-image23180759
•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-wild-horses-image1408129

This post was brought to you buy the experts in animal stock photos, images, and illustrations, Dreamstime.com; bringing together a vast community of talented photographers and designers to make the web and world a more beautiful place since 2000.

1. Size: Donâ€t print a code to where itâ€s not big enough to be seen and scanned easily with a smartphone.
2. Safety: Your code square shouldnâ€t be on billboards or other roadside areas which could cause traffic problems.
3. Congestion: As with the freeway, donâ€t place your scanner codes in stairwells or other high foot traffic areas. This may seem counterproductive, since you want high traffic. But keep away from bottleneck situations.
4. Lame: Donâ€t be! If customers donâ€t have a good experience with QR Codes, theyâ€ll stop scanning them.
5. Donâ€t Link Back: Resist the urge to just link back to the same place that customers are already at. If your QR Code on your restaurant menu takes customers to your online menu, thatâ€s a complete waste.
6. Simple: Donâ€t put the entire ad in the code. This is convoluted and harder to load.

Now that we have a grasp on what not to do, letâ€s see what Joe Barber says are a few good things to do with your QR Code bar. There are a few simple steps that Joe says will ensure higher traffic to your website and more clicks. Of course, this should eventually lead to more sales.

1. Short URL: Using a shorter base url with extensions means you can change your ad campaign at a momentâ€s notice. This leads to more possibilities as your customers know they can keep coming back.
2. Landing Page: Linking back to your landing page is a great way to track where your clicks are coming from. You can use this information to continue targeting that audience and tweak your ads specifically to them. Or you can determine why youâ€re not getting clicks from other demographics and chase them harder.
3. Continue the Game: Even after a contest is over, you can keep those links active. Give some post-contest information or smaller games to keep the links alive.

One thing Joe wanted to remind everyone is that these QR Codes are really flooding todayâ€s market. So much so, consumers are actually hunting out these code boxes. Theyâ€re pretty much expecting bonus features and extra content with every purchase. Itâ€s a high demand for ad campaign managers to keep up with. Another warning that has been issued by many marketing analysts in Australia is the lack of creativity in these scanner codes. Australia has one of the highest per capita sales of smartphones and similar technologies. Yet they donâ€t even rank in the top 50 for QR Code ad campaigns. This is a two-fold problem. One, theyâ€re not marketing the codes well enough to the target demographic. And two, theyâ€re not offering content that will keep consumers clicking. Unless both of these are fixed, Australia will continue to fall farther behind.

Attached Images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source

The Author Sergeo Young writes about technology and the use of it in film on Edictive blog, a film production site for film and broadcast professionals.

Since I am a content contributor and web developer for one matrimonial law firm from New York, I decided to build a forum for website visitors. I realized that the forum will contribute more to the lawyers to feel the pulse of potential clients, and make bigger interaction among them. I researched many solutions to find out which solution would be the best for my client. I singled these three plugins as “best of the best” WordPress forum plugins.

bbPress

One of the more popular solutions on this list is a free plugin that makes your WordPress website appear like a Ning group. Registered users have profiles and can participate in forum threads with or without groups. You can add custom profile fields, assign moderators and even install additional chat components for real-time chat between your community members. In fact, the bbPress-specific plugins help you to keep your installation light and prevent it from hogging resources while still having access to the features that you need on your forum.

If you customize bbPress, your members won’t know they’re on a WordPress-powered website, and tools exist to let you migrate from other forum setups. Plus, you get the advantage of an active support community, which some of the less popular forum options don’t have.

SimplePress

SimplePress also gets major kudos from just about anyone who has ever had a need to add forums to a WordPress-powered blog. If you want a more traditional-looking forum, then SimplePress is your solution. You can’t find this plugin on in the WordPress repository, but it is available for free from the official SimplePress website.

Features for the admin include spam protection, board statistics, RSS feeds for the entire site and individual forum, public and private forums, post moderation and a safe way to store components separately from the plugin. Users can enjoy ranks and badges, signatures, avatars, subscriptions to thread, topic watching and more. SimplePress even includes a spoiler tag and support for WP shortcodes. All in all, this is the solution most like PHPBB and other forum solutions currently available.

Tal.ki Embeddable Forums

The final tool on this list might be the one that is the least known, but that doesn’t make Tal.ki Embeddable Forums any less useful. Installation is as simple as any other plugin that you can search for from your dashboard. The forum script styles itself according to your currently-installed WordPress theme, so you don’t have to do an insane amount of work by yourself. However, you can further customize your new forum with CSS if you choose.

Like SimplePress, you’ll be able to create public forums that anyone can see and private forums that require registration for visitors to view them. Tal.ki Embeddable Forums includes Twitter and Facebook integration, which is something that even standalone forum software sometimes lacks. Users can subscribe to email updates for new posts to interesting threads, and you don’t have to worry about search engine optimization because the creators of Tal.ki Embeddable Forums took those principles into mind. Your thread URLs are search engine-friendly. Finally, users can log in with their WordPress, Facebook, Google or other social media credentials credentials, which might just inspire reluctant folks to join your forum.

While this is a short list and many other forum plugins exist, we think you’ll find that one of these three meets all your WordPress-based community needs.

Attached Images:

•  License: Creative Commons Photo taken from Flick with CC license. Author: Titanas image source

Richard H. WordPress master, blogger and a WordPress developer. In this article Richard shared with us his tips about WordPress plugins which he used when contributing on Samuelson Hause & Samuelson website. This plugins can help lawyers, real estate and other small business owners to easy establish forum on their websites, where can they searching for potential clients.

The only thing worse than not having a blog on your business website is to attempt to blog without really understanding how it should be done. And thatâ€s the mistake many small businesses make. Are you among them? Before you start defending yourself saying “hey, Iâ€m doing everything by the book, Iâ€m doing my research, Iâ€m interlinking my posts…” – we arenâ€t talking here about the technical aspect of blogging, and the mistakes listed below are so common that you may not even realize that they shouldnâ€t be done, since many others are doing them.

Are you talking about yourself a lot?

This is by far the most common one. Without even realizing it, many businesses are creating blog posts that are about them – and not about their customers. Of course, the customers probably do want to know a bit more about the people behind the brand, but that doesnâ€t involve the topics such as their pets, the fight with the kindergarten teacher, the plumbing issues – would you be telling them about that face to face? No? Then donâ€t write about these things on your business blog either.

Are you paying too much or too little attention to your post titles?

Crafting a good post title is what often makes a difference between whether people will read your post or not. A good title lets them know what the post is about, and invites them to click on it and read the rest at the same time. If you arenâ€t paying attention to your titles, you may as well be creating the most engaging content in the post itself – thereâ€s a very good chance that no one will know about it.

On the other hand, if you have mastered the art of crafting the catchy titles that provide a great click through rate, but you arenâ€t delivering in the content, your visitors will probably feel tricked – and then you can forget about having them leave their email address, or calling for a free consultation. You havenâ€t delivered the first chance you had, why should they bother with you further.

Are you too much or too little of a perfectionist about your content?

You should be neither. You should be aware of the fact that your content will be seen and read by the people who are very important to your business – your potential customers, so do your best to make it worth them while. But donâ€t go overboard and polish it over and over again, so that it takes you two weeks to finish one article. Keep in mind that it will probably never be perfect – but it needs to be good enough.

Are you not showing that you value the content youâ€ve created?

If you donâ€t care about your content enough to promote it yourself, then why would your readers care to do it? If you donâ€t think that comments on your posts are worth reading and responding to, then your readers will feel the same. You have to be the first one to show that your latest post is really useful/entertaining/engaging – you are the one person who shouldnâ€t forget about that piece.

This post was written ba Andrew Handley, from http://www.midislandcollision.com/. If you recognize yourself in one or more of these points, then itâ€s time to stop and re-think your blogging strategy. Then go back and re-do all the posts on your blog – some of them will probably scream: Delete!

For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, itâ€s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause youâ€re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, letâ€s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, youâ€ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

Even though there are more sides to internet marketing than just email marketing (permission based), email has been the foundation that our business sits on.

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The initial goal is to draw potential clients to your web page.  The most Visibility is critical to your success.  Pinpoint the intended demographic of your site and find popular blogs that such people would browse – for example, if you are selling antique dolls, you may want to frequent forums that pander to enthusiasts of these objects.  All it takes is one well-designed promotion on these sites to lure folks who are already likely to need your product.

You may also want to utilize article writing.  Often, innovation comes before want; most individuals will not figure that a concern exists, especially one that your offering can fix, until they are made aware.  Ideally, you would want brief, expository, and most of all unique articles that illuminate the problem or need, and then direct the reader to the offer you are selling as the answer.  There are a number of article databases around the Internet where you can send them; if you can find an article bank that is limited to certain specific topics that are related to your product, so much the better.

Lastly, study how you can best exploit SEO.  Most people will start looking for stuff using search engines, and your objective will ultimately be to work your way to the top of their generated search results.  One good marketing strategy is generating links in web directories and seeding your articles with specific keywords are just two ways to get search engines to notice you.  Also, by participation in a smart discussion on existing forums, and leaving your web address in your message links for easy reference, you create interest in what you have to say, and eventually, in the products that you may have to offer.  People are enticed more by a vibrant character than a cold promotion.

Once you have drawn in the masses, you ought to make sure that your site can follow through with your promises and the reputation youâ€ve moreover, keep your site looking novel and innovative, with regular new data so that people can be inspired by its momentum.

Unfortunately, not all of us are that techno savvy and most of us who are beginning to enjoy podcasting are still confused as to which is the best podcast software to use. If you have been having some troubles finding the best podcast software, never fear. As an old and not so techno savvy adage goes “when there is a will, there is a way”. To help you find what you are looking for, here are some tips for you.

Hunting For The Best Podcast Software

If you want to find the best podcast software, you need to understand how the technology works. Yes, most of us citizens of the modern world are already aware that podcast has something to do with data file streams and the whole gamut of things but then again knowing the working definition of what a podcast is do not make us experts in this area. If we really want to find the best podcast software, we need to know how the technology work and what features in this technology can give us the most satisfaction. Now, learning more about podcasting is easy these days so never fear that you will hit a wall in your quest for information. The Internet can provide you with most of the information that you need.

A person with a grab on the podcast technology can get to know the different podcast software. Again, you can find a lot of information in this area on the Internet. On the other hand, if you have a geek friend who knows more about computer that more average mortals do, you can also ask your friend to enlighten you about the different podcast software available in the market. With an expert on your side, you can never go wrong when it comes to picking out the best podcast software. Your friend can help you to purchase the best podcast software and also show you how to use this thing. You will forget your cd player and mp3.

The poll went on to say that over anything else a mobile is the one thing we will always take with us even over a wallet or purse which is most certainly a huge eye opener. Funnily enough the midlands saw the best/worst result depending on how you look at things with a massive 98% of people saying they carried it with them every single day.

The main question to ask is why? It really is rather simple. The amount of things a mobile phone can now do is astronomical ranging from a simple text or call to checking the bank details online or even getting insurance quotes. The mobile phone is one of those technology’s that seems to be advancing more and more not every year but every few months with some phones even now containing voice recognition! As well as this you can now watch television as well as your favourite film all from the touch of a button on the phone as well as look at quotes from different car insurance firms!

Of course it does mean that muggings have risen simply because there are simply more phones out there to take as well as the question are we becoming too dependent on technology? It was certainly not like this thirty years ago and it seems that as the generations go on we are becoming lazier and lazier.

If technology is your thing then why not look for gadget insurance to make sure your favourite new gadget is protected against anything and everything!