In the last few months, I have unintentionally branched into a new area of service: fixing hacked WordPress blogs.

Honestly, I’d much rather spend my time doing search engine optimization, marketing, or coding new themes, but when I get a panicked email from a hack victim, I understand that getting their blog up and running again is (naturally) their number-one priority.

This post explains why WordPress blogs get hacked and how to keep it from happening to you.
How bloggers discover they’ve been hacked
Many times the hackers are pretty slick, and you might not even know you’ve been hacked until you start to lose traffic or see a weird error. I had a few blogs hacked about a year ago and it took me a while to notice because I wasn’t regularly monitoring my traffic.

Some symptoms I’ve seen (on my own blogs or on my clients’ blogs):

Delisting, a dramatic drop in rank, or a “caution” page from Google. You’ll usually find out about this a while after the hack, either when you search for yourself on Google, or (if you usually get a lot of traffic from Google) when you notice your traffic go down. Sometimes you’ll get an email from Google that alerts you to the situation.
Strange links in your posts that just “appeared.” You’ll usually only spot these if you go back and edit an existing post, so many bloggers don’t notice these right away, either.
Weird blog behavior, like blank pages or “secret” pages that only show up if you try to go to a page that doesn’t exist. Not all of this points to being hacked (for instance, an out-dated plugin can cause a blank page) but it’s often the first clue that something’s wrong.

Why isn’t it easier to spot? The hackers purposely hide most of the evidence from you, and intentionally set it up so that search engines (like Google) see the new “content” they’ve added, but regular visitors (including you) do not. That makes it harder to catch the hack right away and makes it more likely the hackers will accomplish their goals.

Last week, a friend of mine asked me if I thought it was possible to get a good website design for less than the $1500 she’d been quoted by a local designer. I get this question all the time (or variations on it, like “I can’t afford you, but I still want a nice website until I can”), and my answer usually starts with that annoying standby, “It depends,” and goes from there.

Since I know people are interested in finding ways to cut costs when starting out, I thought I’d take a few minutes and outline a cheaper alternative to hiring me or another full-service blog/web development firm. This “how to” post is also part of the “Crowdsourcing Business How To’s” extravaganza at Sparkplugging.
Premium blog design is not for everybody
In case you think I’m nuts (or suspiciously unselfish, which hardly ever happens in the real world), I’ll start by addressing the obvious question: why would I tell you how to not hire me?

Simple. My services are not right for everyone!

Don’t get me wrong—if you and I are a match made in heaven, you will get tremendous value out of working with me. If you’re an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, or represent a business, your investment in my services will generate a great return. My excellent code quality, attention to SEO, and blog savvy easily present a high value that goes on to pay for itself.

However, if you’re doing the web thing as a hobby, or you’re bootstrapping and have no capital to invest (regardless of the ROI), or you’re not sure if you’re going to stick with this business, it’s wiser to hold off on any purchases that aren’t absolutely necessary. In my friend’s case, the site she wants is for an on-the-side business that she doesn’t plan to take full-time for a long time, so her anticipated revenues don’t justify much investment.

I got a great question over the weekend from Reonne of The Chocolate Fudge Cafe:

What’s the best way to make it so that my initial post, “Stir The Pot,” stays on the first page of my blog? How did you make it so that your findableblogs.com first page stays the same…like a website? I thought that posts automatically get archived as you continue to update and write new posts. I’d like what I said in the beginning to stay on there for at least awhile, but I want to add new material as well.

First, a confession: the only reason the front page of this blog hasn’t changed for a while (prior to this post and a change I’ll talk about in a moment) is that I haven’t written anything for a while! Between client work and an ebook I’m about to release, I’ve been a complete slacker where this blog is concerned.

If you’d rather not do the slacker thing (like Reonne, you have posts to write!), you have three options.

In news that’s been way too long in coming, I’ve just launched a new site called WordPress Theme Review. The concept is based directly on the work I’ve done to improve search engine optimization (…

I quietly launched a new blog (I’m a little out of control!) a couple of weeks ago that some of you may find helpful.  It’s called WordPress Quick Start, and it’s an informal video blog for people who want …