Jason Brubaker

How To Backup Your Blog In Five Minutes A Week

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You need to backup your blog today. Like right after you read this article. And I’m speaking from experience. A few days back one of my blogs completely went kaput. It was a crappy experience on an already crappy day. And it could have been prevented.

The reason this happened was simple. I installed a plugin to help me “clean up” my database and delete useless content and unlinked images. This is nothing new. Over the past decade, I have installed and used hundreds of plugins. And in that time, I never crashed my site.

backup your blog

Backup Your Blog

But this day was different. A few seconds after executing the plugin, my site crashed. I mean really crashed. The page I was on went grey. And I got a warning that my database was no longer connected. I tried to refresh the page, return to the dashboard and access a few blog posts. But nothing worked.

At this point, I reached out to my hosting company (I use WPEngine, which in full disclosure I also promote as an affiliate) and they confirmed my worst fear… The plugin had destroyed all essential databases. But the next part really made me panic. The technical support rep asked asked if I had a back up. I did not.

The reason I did not have a back up for my site is because I’m an experienced blogger. I know what I’m doing. So why would I ever need to back up my site? And isn’t it the job of my hosting company to keep back ups on file? This was really silly on my part.

Plan For The Unexpected

At this point I didn’t know if I should cry or laugh. The blog contains nearly one-thousand articles published over a decade. And more importantly, the blog generates a major source of income for our family. Even my wife (who doesn’t pay much attention to my nerd talk) turned off the TV and hugged our dog…

Three (very long) minutes later WPEngine came back with good news. They were able to restore the site to a backup from a few days ago. And this fixed the database too. Suffice it to say, I learned a big lesson… Always back up your site! At the very least, make sure you take time download your recent content.

And while I do pay over $100 a month for WPEngine hosting, the support is worth every penny. They have a 24/7 chat box. And I’ve always been impressed with the companies ability solve my major site issues. (Outside of this experience, I also run a secure monthly membership site. And they are great at helping me with that stuff too!)

The Lazy Blog Backup

If you’re busy, then exporting your content as an XML file is a small step you can take to at lease preserve your blog articles. Keep in mind that this method does not retain your images and media. But if your site completely fails, then you at least have something.

Step 1 – Go into your blog dashboard and click on Tools.

wordpress export

Step 2 – Click on the Export tab and save your file somewhere secure!

export wordpress

Additional Blog Backup Options

As I mentioned earlier, this export will give you an XML file. It will contain your basic articles. And if you have to resort to this method, you’ll spend the next month adding images and media to your site. It’s not the worst experience. But it’s not great.

If you really want to back up your blog like a pro, you might choose from any number of the awesome WordPress backup plugins available. If you’re using WPEngine, you’ll find they disallow some popular backup plugins, as they may conflict with the platform. In this regard, Vaultpress is a common secondary plugin that they recommend. And you want to get some awesome hosting (again, I get paid to promote – And I do so, because I LOVE the service) check out WPEngine.

How To Use Missinglettr To Increase Your Blog Traffic

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Your blogging success is dependent upon traffic. Without traffic, you don’t have much of a business. One easy way to drive traffic back to your site is through social sharing. As soon as you post an article, you share it on all your social media accounts. Doing this helps you engage your audience and drive traffic back to your site.

The problem is, this is usually a once-and-done process. After sharing your article, you get distracted with a gazillion other blogging tasks. And next thing you know, your social shares get lost in the noise. This is where Missinglettr can help.

Missinglettr

How To Use Missinglettr To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Missinglettr offers an easy way to engage your audience and drive traffic back your site. You simply write your article, then the software re-shares your article multiple times over the next year. Because this works on auto pilot, this saves lots of time. And over time, each new article drives more and more traffic back to your site.

As soon as you publish a blog post, Missinglettr sends an email asking you to review the 12 month social campaign before going live. From there, you simply log into your account, make some minor edits and then push it live. After that, your blog article will be shared in your social media channels over the next year.

Here’s a brief video overview of how to use the service:

Assuming your articles are good, using Missinglettr can help you increase your traffic. And once you increase your traffic, you’ll be able to get more email subscribers. From there, you’ll be able to present value, build trust, and increase sales. And having an easy way to automate this process will allow you to focus on creating new content for your blog.

I personally love using Missinglettr so much that I’ve become an affiliate. With this in mind, they are allowing me to offer you a pretty awesome deal just for trying out the service. To find out more about automating social promotions, go here. 

Don’t Break The Chain (And Other Habit Hacks)

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Don’t break the chain. That’s the mantra I keep repeating to myself every time I reach for a donut… Or bread… Or french fries. And I am not going to sugarcoat it. Despite the fun stuff happening in my career, achieving physical fitness is a challenge. At five-foot-ten, weighing 215 lbs, my BMI is a roughly 31.

How I got to this point is both subtile and obvious. Subtle because gaining excessive weight has taken me ten years to achieve. Obvious because I got into the common habit of eating (and drinking) more and moving less. Looking back, it’s easy to see how an overabundance of bread, chips and salsa, french fries, donuts and alcohol led me to this point.

don't break the chain

Small Habits Add Up Over Time

When you look at the image above, I look pretty okay by most standards. (It also helps that I’m standing next to my beautiful wife.) But according to a number of medical professionals, my BMI (body mass index) is not within the healthy range for my height. And this puts me higher than average risk for acquiring some sort of obesity related disease. Fun times.

More than the health benefits, some things don’t FEEL right. Over the past year my wife has surprised me on a few occasions with awesome dress shirts. Even though she bought the large size, many don’t fit. This alone is motivation to take action. And if I’m really being transparent with you (which is the goal of sharing this story), the most embarrassing aspect of the extra weight is a set of man boobs. Man boobs!

Suffice it to say, this is my wake up call. Because I want to live to at least 85 years old 110 years old and still have youthful mobility (and be present for my wife and family), I figured NOW was a good enough time to change the way I eat, live and sleep. My goal in sharing this is to help keep me motivated, while at the same time provide you with inspiration for your own life.

Don’t Break The Chain

One tool I’m using is the “Don’t Break The Chain” philosophy. This method was supposedly used by Jerry Seinfeld early in his career so he could consistently write new jokes. This is basically a calendar where you set ONE goal and place an X on every day you achieved the goal. Over time your X’s look like a chain XXXXXX. If you miss a day, you need to start over.

Here is a wall calendar you can grab from Amazon, if you’re interested:

don't break the chain

Track Your Progress

My fitness goal is to drop 45lbs of fat. That will put me square at 170 LBS, adjusting my body mass index to 24.4, which is right around the normal range. I’ll then fit into my shirts and feel better about myself. Instead of getting overly complex, I’m going to achieve these heath and productivity goals by replacing bad habits with good habits.

Habits To Cut:

  1. Alcohol Intake: I won’t get into it here. But I’ve spent too much of my life enjoying too much alcohol. And while my version of “rock bottom” involved embarrassing myself in a chance meeting with Rob Pattinson (which I’ll share some other time)… If I am going to change, I have to get real. Alcohol has mad me fat. So I need to take a break.
  2. Eating Bread: Yes. I get it. Oprah loves bread. And while I can’t speak for her journey, I love bread too. A little too much. And I also love donuts. And while I’m thinking about it, I also cannot stop eating tortilla chips. So these need to go.
  3. Internet and TV: Bottom line, I spend too much time watching dumb videos online. I also debate politics. This is time I could be spending with my wife, dog or working on new projects. So I’m cutting the dumb media down.
  4. Stop Complaining: I’m not sure how this will help my physical health. But I’m pretty sure by cutting down on my complaining (about politics, a challenging work day or life) I’m going to start thinking clearer thoughts.
  5. Avoid Toxic People: This is a little harsh. But you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. My goal is to only spend time with people who lift me up, and not put me down.

Habits To Keep:

  1. 30 Squats and 30 Pushups: This may seem overly simplistic. But I wanted to create at least one daily fitness goal I could stick to without much effort. And being able to accomplish this one should be super easy.
  2. Write Every Day: I’m resolving to write at least 300 words per day.
  3. Uplift Friends: Every day I’ll be reaching out to at least one friend to see how they are doing. When appropriate, I will work to uplift them and provide useful advice to their lives.
  4. Networking: Each day I’ve resolved to reach out and connect with someone just beyond my reach. My primary goal here is to meet and build relationships with new people. But I will also reach out to old friends too.
  5. Record Food Intake: I am using MyFitnessPal. And I plan to meticulously record every morsel of food I ingest.

While it is unrealistic to expect overnight results, “Don’t Break The Chain” is a simple personal development ritual, designed to help you establish habits to get you where you need to go.

Zaxaa Versus Clickbank

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A few months back, I started selling digital products with Zaxaa. Prior to migrating my business to Zaxaa, I was a huge proponent of Clickbank. But that changed when I received a sobering email from the CB staff mandating that I install a goofy looking “trust badge” on all my sales pages.

Suffice it to say, I decided to find a new shopping cart solution.

zaxaa

[Disclaimer: You should assume that the owner of this website is an affiliate for providers of goods and services mentioned on this website and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider.]

Selling Products Online With Zaxaa

While the idea of avoiding heavy handed shopping cart services seems obvious, my decision didn’t come easy. When I first got into selling products online, I simply needed a way to take payment, deliver digital products securely and communicate to customers via my auto-responder.

This basic setup is fine if you create your own information products. But as my business grew, I started co-authoring eBooks with partners. If you only have a few partners, you can manage your own accounting. But as you add more products and more partners, tracking royalty payments becomes a nightmare.

One of the reasons I loved Clickbank is because the software allows you to easily split your revenue with your partners at the point of sale. They also manage all the stupid tax stuff, like sending out yearly 1099s to your partners and affiliates. This is a major benefit and the primary reason I stuck with CB so long.

Outside of Clickbank, there are only a handful of shopping carts that perform “split payments” and Zaxaa is one of them. But unlike CB, with most other solutions, you will need to manage your own tax paperwork. In my case, the increased sales conversions more than paid for my accountant.

Getting Set Up With Zaxaa

In addition to splitting payments, Zaxaa also allows you to easily set up sales funnels, membership sites, digital product delivery and affiliate management. So it seemed like a great solution.

There are three ways to get started with Zazaa. You can pay a yearly fee, a monthly fee or set up a free account. With the free account, you pay Zaxaa a commission on each sale. And because I wanted to test out Zaxaa, I opted for the free account.

Once you sign up, you’ll get step-by-step training, including this video:

Zaxxa is robust. I was able to quickly upload an eBook and modify my thank you page. I was then provided with a “buy now” link that I promptly added to my sales page. And after some basic promotion, I made a sale. After several sales, I decided to fully migrate away from CB.

From there, I added mutiple products, one-time-offers (OTOs). When creating one-time-offers, you will have the option to create and host the pages via Zaxaa or provide your own URL. I chose to host my OTOs on my own site.

For example: I started with my 7 dollar eBook, then offered the 17 dollar eBook I wrote with Scott, then offered the 27 dollar eBook I wrote with Jared. And then the proceeds are split accordingly!

What About Membership Sites?

Membership sites were another challenge. While Zaxaa provides their own membership plugin (which you can download here), most of my sites are set up using the Wishlist Member Plugin. I was initially worried I’d be forced to migrate my memberships. But after some noodling, I was pleased to find out Zaxaa also supports WishList.

My only headache with Zaxaa is their checkout page limitations. While Zaxaa does provide you with multiple templates, you do not have the ability to change or spit test colors. With this said, while analyzing sales stats, the shopping cart is a clear winner (for me) over my previous.

Suffice it to say, I got so excited with my own results, that I became an affiliate and now promote Zaxaa. So in addition to providing an awesome ways to sell and deliver digital products, they also created a free report full of practicable tips on how to get more sales. Hopefully your experience with Zaxaa will be as awesome as my own.

How Dennis Becker’s 5 Bucks a Day Changed My Life

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If you’re like me, the whole idea of posting stuff online and getting paid for it is seductive. This sentiment is reinforced by a gazillion websites promising fame, fortune and the freedom to do anything you want, seemingly overnight.

The problem is, most of the “gurus” running those websites have never actually grown an online business. If they had, they would think twice about the promise of fast riches. While online success is possible, it doesn’t happen over night.

For the first year of blogging, my results were mediocre. To make my situation worse, I remember attending internet marketing events where other bloggers touted the fact they were making thousands of dollars in their sleep.

5 bucks a day

How Dennis Becker’s 5 Bucks a Day Changed My Life

5_bucks_a_dayAt the time, I was lucky to make a hundred dollars per month! This made me feel discouraged and I often thought about quitting. Then one day, I stumbled upon 5 Bucks a Day.

Unlike all the other hype-filled training, Dennis Becker’s book recommends that you simply focus on one goal: Make 5 bucks a day! 

As soon as I read that, everything changed. I started worrying less about other bloggers and focused on one simple goal – Could I make 5 bucks a day online?

This simple question set the tone for my day. It forced me to plan out valuable activities that generated results. In time, my revenue eventually hit and surpassed 5 bucks per day.

Dennis recently updated 5 Bucks Per Day. The latest version explains the basic 5BAD strategy for those that haven’t read the original book, but also includes many of the real life marketing lessons Dennis learned growing his online business. In full disclosure, I love this book so much that I have become an affiliate. And you can grab your copy of 5 Bucks a Day HERE

Here’s the philosophy. If you can make five bucks a day online, you can make ten. And if you can make ten, you can make twenty… This sort if incremental growth is totally possible. And if you work at it, eventually you will surprise yourself. And just in case you’re wondering, my online business now generates over $100 most days. But it all started with $5 bucks a day.

Create a LeadPages Popup

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One of the primary ways you can increase your online business is by getting more targeted website visitors to opt-in to your mailing list. And one of the ways you increase opt-ins is by leveraging the power of amazing opt-in software.

Through the years, I have tried several popular opt-in software solutions. And through my testing, I have found one of most successful ways to increase opt-ins involves utilizing pop-up software.

I know… I know…

As soon as you hear the word “popup,” you might be tempted to think about 1995 when the entire Internet was one big popup.

But I ain’t talking about that useless crap.

I am talking about utilizing an aesthetically pleasing, non-obtrusive light-box, opt-in popup that promises real value for your website visitors.

I am talking about an opt-in popup that provides an irresistible offer… An offer so good, that a large percentage of your visitors have no choice but to happily join your mailing list.

For as long as I can remember, the majority of my leads came from the opt-in popup installed on my sites. This changed a few months ago when I discovered an awesome opt-in software called LeadPages.

LeadPages is a web-based lead capture software that helps you increase the number of people that opt in to your email list. When you sign up, you have the ability to choose from dozens (soon to be hundreds) of proven, highly converting LeadPages templates.

You then apply these templates to your business so you can capture more leads.

Since adding LeadPages to my business, my opt-ins (and thus my business) has increased. And because the LeadPages software is so effective, much of my previous lead capture software has been made redundant.

While I’m happy to remove the old software from my blog, one thing that LeadPages currently lacks is a pop-up solution.

Update: LeadPages Now offers several pop up solutions.

And the truth is, I wondered what would happen if I could put LeadPages in a popup.

Would adding LeadPages in a popup improve my subscriptions?

In the following video, I am going to show you how to combine LeadPages with a Smart PopUp plugin, which is essentially an iframe popup plugin for WordPress.

How To Create a LeadPages Popup For WordPress

For those of you interested, here are the tools I utilized to create a LeadPages popup for WordPress.

Step 1 – Select Your WordPress Theme: You will need to select your WordPress theme. I prefer sites made on the Genesis framework. You don’t need to utilize Genesis for this setup – However I have only tested this scenario on Genesis. Genesis Framework (affiliate link – they pay me to promote.)

Step 2 – LeadPages:  I assume you’re already a LeadPages customer. If not, you can find out more about LeadPages by going here.  LeadPages (affiliate link – they pay me to promote.)

Step 3 – Grab This PopUp Tool: In my example, I show you how to  going to create a LeadPages popup for WordPress by incorporating the Smart PopUp plugin for WordPress.

Please post any questions in the comments below. I will be happy to help you.

How To Fix Your Site When You Get This: The Website Ahead Contains Malware

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So you just received the following, dreaded message related to your blog. . .

The Website Ahead Contains Malware!

That’s the message I woke up to today for one of my major websites. And I immediately freaked out. I mean, really freaked out.

What the heck is Malware? And why is my website currently telling people: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!”

If you’re reading this article, odds are good you are experiencing the same thing. You are probably asking yourself the same questions as me. How did this happen? Who did this?

First of all, I want you to take a deep breath.

Actually. . .

Let’s celebrate a little. In fact, I want you to congratulate yourself. Odds are good that if your website is currently receiving the warning: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!”

Then you’ve made it. Your site is popular.

Or perhaps you’re just running old software. Or both. And we will cover this in a second.

But back to patting yourself on the back. . .

I mean, your website is popular enough to attract Malware. And if you don’t know what Malware is, you’re not alone.

Basically, Malware is a little piece of nerdy computer code that some hacker fed into your website. And it’s actually pretty common. One easy way bad code gets on your site is through outdated WordPress plugins. Heck, sometimes, you’ll be running more than one site on your server – And the malware will spread from one of your sites to the next. . .

That sounds scary, right? I’m with you.

But let’s hold our horses.

The good news is this. Because there are literally thousands of websites that get slammed with the whole: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!” stuff – It means there are lots of ways to fix it.

How To Delete Malware From Your Website

Step 1 – Call Your Hosting Company ASAP

The first thing you need to do is call your hosting company. I personally use Bluehost for a lot of my websites. Over the years, I have telephoned them countless times with everything from the mundane to the overly complex. . .

In most instances, they were able to help me.

So when I telephoned yesterday crying to my Bluehost helper about how my website was presently blocking visitors with “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!” warning – My guy was pretty helpful.

He was like, “Take a chill pill.”

Actually, he didn’t say that.

Utilizing Site Doctor

My Bluehost technician did reassure me that this stuff happens every day. In fact, Bluehost and most every reputable hosting company out there has several software solutions built into their service offerings.

The one I chose was called the Site Doctor malware removal service. While the service did cost fifty dollars, they guarantee their work for 30 days – And when your sites are down, paying for this service makes all the sense in the world.

Once you get your malware removal software in motion, the next step is to check out you Google Webmaster Tools.

Step 2 – Open Up Your Google Webmaster Tools

I am assuming you have Google Webmaster Tools set up on all of your most important websites. If you do not, you need to set this up as soon as possible.

[Here is a link to Google Webmaster Tools.]

When you log into your account, you will be provided with an overview of your monitored domains.

When, I logged into my account, I was met with this message:

Website Ahead Contains Malware
Webmaster Tools

When I clicked on the “check site health” link, I received the following description.

Google has detected harmful code on your site. To protect visitors to your site from malware, Google’s search results now display a warning when users click a link to your site. Some browsers like Chrome may also show a similar warning.

If that’s not enough to keep you awake at night, I don’t know what will.

Step 3 – Fix The Issues and Request Google Review

Here’s the kicker. At this stage, there isn’t a whole lot you can do but wait for your malware removal service to finish the job and send you an email. My email from Site Doctor came around 5AM the next morning. Here’s what it said:

Hello,

Thank you for using the Site Doctor malware removal service. Your account is now online.

The exact method that was employed to compromise your account is unclear, but I believe that it was done through one of your outdated installations or one of their themes or plugins. Your account had the following outdated installations:

[They went on to list about a gazillion outdated files.]

At this point, I got super excited. I could finally take the next steps.

Step 4 – Request a Google Review

Once your maleware service cleans and removes all the infected files from your site, your next step is to log back into your Google Webmaster Tools and request a website review.

Fixed_Malware_Review

Once you check the box and click the button, you’ll be met with the following message:

Before you request a review, please make sure your entire site is clean and secure. If no malicious content is found, we’ll remove the warning from your site. This process will take up to 24 hours.

Google will ask you to explain what tactics you completed to remove the maleware.

For this, I wrote:

Utilized Site Doctor at the request of Bluehost. Received notification that maleware was removed. Please confirm and thank you for your help.

Once you request a review, the ball is once again in Google’s court. They say the review could take upwards of 24hrs, which adds a bit of additional anxiety. And if you’re anything like me, I suggest you utilize this downtime to focus on your other outstanding projects.

Step 5 – Recovering from Website Malware

After your website is live again, there are several things you can do to avoid receiving the dreaded message: The Website Ahead Contains Malware! – After completing the Site Doctor service, Bluehost sent me the following security checklist.

Bluehost recommended that I complete the following actions to help secure my websites:

  1. Change the Admin Email on your account.
  2. Change the Password on your account.
  3. Change the Credit Card on file on your account.
  4. Update and apply any patches, upgrades, or updates that the 3rd party vendor or web developer of your scripts may have available.
  5. Fix any loose file permissions (this may be the most common exploit vulnerability)
  6. Delete all non-system Ftp Accounts that were created, or at the very least, change the passwords to the FTP Accounts.
  7. Remove any Access Hosts by clicking the “Remote Mysql” icon and clicking the Remove Red X by each entry if there are any entries.
  8. Check your scripts for any Header Injection attacks, Sql Injection attacks, Cross-Site Scripting attacks, etc., as well as your php.ini file settings.
  9. Check your home/work computers for any viruses, trojans, or keyloggers.

Suffice it to say, I know what I’ll be doing all day tomorrow!

Conclusion

Not all aspects of running an internet business is fun. But this is true of any business. Dealing with issues without losing your mind is all part of the fun.

When you receive the dreaded message: The Website Ahead Contains Malware!

Don’t lose your cool.

While this is a new experience for you, these issues are pretty common for any successful website. Hosting companies and Google Webmaster tools are your best friend in the fight against maleware.