Website Maintenance

Proper maintenance of your website helps in improving the visibility of your website. Some of the website maintenance tips are as follows:

Update your website regularly - Your website is never fully completed because you will always require the need to add new links and to update or change web contents and graphics. Only fresh and updated content attracts many visitors to your website. Hence, make sure that your web site content is up to date.

Things to consider while updating your website - Make a back up copy before you update any page. Set up some blog software that enables for easy updating of pages such as a news page. Keep record of the updating page details, such as the page number of the pages that have been changed or updated, the date and time of modifying the pages, and the content of modification. When you update a web page, make it a point to maintain the site style, look and feel.

Things to consider when changing website content - Set the pages that require addition of content or materials in the future, at the position where they can expand vertically. If you change the content of a web page, do not change the embedded search terms without thinking about the result of it. If you make any changes to your web pages, make sure to check your changes in different browsers. Use only absolute terms when you refer to periods of time.

Things to consider when changing the appearance or other design aspects of your website - Avoid using many colors and sizes for the text fonts of your website pages. Also avoid using too much of italicized and bold words and sentences. Create a template that contains all your website design elements including your menu and header. Use this template for creating new pages. The use of excellent pleasant color combination can improve the look and feel of your website.

Ensure to display the images in the website properly - Maintain all the images of your website in a subfolder. See to that all the new pictures added in a page of your website are of the same width and height as that of the pictures already contained in the page. Make sure to change the picture on your front page every once in a while. But be sure that the new picture is of the same size as that of the old one.

Check the links of your website regularly - If any of the links on your website produce any error message, then visitors may lose interest and turn off your site. So, make sure that all the links in your website work properly. You can make use of many online tools that will easily and quickly check a web site for broken links.

Maintain file names - When you replace a PDF file, make sure that you don’t change the file name. This will eliminate the need to change the links to that file.

See to that your website works online - Website monitoring companies can monitor whether your website remains online, and can report you. If the website monitoring company reports that your website experiences downtime, you can contact your web host to find out the reason.

Do not change the search engine optimization features - Maintain the search engine optimization features so that you don’t face any negative impact on site ranking.

Firewalls-do you need them?

The internet is littered with evil intentions and malicious - albeit smart and brilliant – plotters. They are constantly in the prowl for innocent, unprotected computers. Internet hackers use all sorts of codes such as viruses, worms, and Trojans, to crack into and ruin your computer. You must therefore be prepared to block them off from ever entering your computer’s system at all times.

It is often said that the best cure is prevention. And the saying applies to your computers. If you want to protect your computer from the threat of viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malicious code, one of the best options to take is setting up a firewall.

What is a Firewall?

Imagine a firewall to be the fence that sits between your computer and the internet, or between your computer network and all the other computer networks out there.

It serves as a defense mechanism against harmful codes or data that may destroy your computer, and it works by examining the information that attempts to enter your computer or your network.

When a firewall is set up properly, hackers will not be able to detect your computer in their search for vulnerable ones to victimize.

What are the Types of Firewalls?

Firewalls are generally divided into three categories: software firewalls, hardware routers, and wireless routers. To know which kind of firewall is suitable for your needs, there are two factors on which your decision should depend on:

1. The number of computers that your firewall will service

2. The kind of operating system that you use (it can be Linux, a version of Windows, Apple Macintosh, and so on).

Choosing a Software Firewall

If you are planning to set up a firewall for a single computer, it is ideal to use a software firewall. It also works well with most Windows operating systems. They are readily available from software development companies for a certain fee.

Some of the advantages of a software firewall include:

- No additional hardware is required for it to work
- There is no additional wiring that needs to be installed for the software to work.

However, there are also some disadvantages to deciding on using a software firewall:

- A software firewall may cause money and can be a bit costly
- You will need to install and configure the software to get it to work properly
- If you have multiple computers, you will need to install the software on each one of them to get them protected.

Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Vista are already equipped with a built-in firewall, but older versions of Windows as well as other operating systems require that you set up a separate firewall.

Setting up a firewall is recommended to any computer owner, especially to those who have very important data stored in their computers. Often the question lies not on whether you need a firewall or not, but instead on which type of firewall you should set up.

Acknowledgement to Travis Booth!