What Is An SSL Certificate?

What Is An SSL Certificate?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates are a simple but essential way to keep sensitive information safe while giving customers the confidence they need to complete a transaction online.

When online customers feel secure, they are more likely to complete a purchase or personalise their profile and return to your website.Customers will buy with confidence when they know that their information is protected. SSL encrypts sensitive, private data, such as credit card numbers and bank account details. Normally, data on the web is sent in clear text from computer to computer until its destination is reached. Any of the computers along the way can see that information – this is where the gap is presented to cyber attackers who are looking for soft targets.

Recently, Google announced that they prefer secured sites (even if your website doesn’t do online transactions), giving anyone who protects their website a boost in search engine rankings.

And the good news is securing your website has never been easier.

Why Choose Our SSL Certificates?

Secure Encryption

Keep data safe. All plans come with high (128 – 256 bit) encryption that ensures transactions and sensitive information are secure.

Fast Setup

Get secured quickly. SSL certificates are typically approved in 4 days or less, with some plans approved in just 10 minutes!

Total Browser Compatibility

Everyone is covered. Certificates are compatible with all major browsers, including those on mobile devices.

Padlock And Site Seal

Show customers they’re protected. A site seal proves your SSL is in place and the padlock in the browser bar tells customers their information is safe.

Secure All Versions Of Your Site

Our SSL certificates secure both www. and non-www. versions of your site – no need to buy a separate certificate.

Warranty

Do business confidently. Liability insurance protects you and your customers if your SSL certificate is issued or used incorrectly – for an amount of up to $1,750,000.

Our Partnership with CloudFlare

Our Partnership with CloudFlare

We are proud to announce our partnership with CloudFlare. Why are we so excited about it? CloudFlare secures and accelerates your website by acting as a proxy between your visitors and Moila Hosting servers. The result is better protection for your website, shorter page loading times and you’ll save a whole load of bandwidth

Once enabled for your website, CloudFlare is designated as your authoritative name server. All requests to your website are now routed through their systems, allowing them to clean and accelerate your traffic. And with state-of-the-art routing technology in 30 data centres around the world,

CloudFlare is also able to:

1.    Give your visitors the fastest connection possible.
2.    Screen your website’s traffic for malicious visitors
3.    Optimise your web content
4.    Cache static content on your site

contact us at support@moilahosting.com to get CloudFlare on your Website.

 

5 Signs You Need A New Website

5 Signs You Need A New Website

Are you running your business with a so-so website? Do you dread giving out your website’s URL? Do you secretly dream about a re-design?

Then you need a new website.

In the early 2000s you were on top of your game simply because you had a website. But what was cool in 2001 is not so cool anymore. Let me share a secret: Never skimp on website design. When designed for today’s modern audiences, websites are the best tool for reaching, engaging with and winning new customers. So how do you know when it’s time for a new design? When will you finally give up your original site? Maybe you don’t know where to look for the signs of a mediocre site. Well, I’ll give you five to start with:

Your content is old

There is nothing worse than visiting a company’s website only to realise that they last updated the site in 2007. Up-to-date and relevant copy ensures that your clients and customers always know what they get.

Your website is not responsive

Don’t let smartphones hate your website. These days people work on all sorts of devices – with their mobile phones being at the top of the list. So what if your website does not display correctly on a mobile phone or tablet? Well, your potential client will most likely leave your website and look for a site that is more user-friendly. Smartphone 1 : Your company 0.

Your website is not SEO friendly

So, what is the use of a website if you only rank on page 1443 of Google? SEO means that Google can track your site and rank it according to different factors: your content, meta descriptions, images, links, title texts and headings. Not sure what I’m talking about? Then you definitely need to improve your SEO.

Your competition’s site is looking spectacular

These days everyone is online. And this creates a whole new world of rivalry. It’s a platform where the strongest get to the top first. So, when your site looks like a flopperoo next to your competitor’s state-of-the-art masterpiece, it’s time to get a new website.

Not getting any leads?

Well, then it is undoubtedly time to look at why your website is going through a chronic dry spell. Your website should be one of your top sources for new leads.

If you’re not bragging to friends and family about your online home anymore and you find yourself making excuses for why it’s not looking so great, you need a re-design.

Website VS Facebook

Website VS Facebook

A common question.

“While Google and the other search engines do index Facebook business pages, they don’t carry the weight of a website.”

There are those who have never had a website because of the costs of hosting and design, and now they are opting for Facebook as an alternative because it is free. We even see some businesses getting rid of the cost of a website and switching over to Facebook only.

Is this wise?

While it may work for some, opting for Facebook over a business website is not good business, and is potentially problematic. While a Facebook page is an important element for most businesses , it is not smart to put all your eggs in the Facebook basket. Here are a few reasons:

  1. Ownership –While Facebook is free, you don’t own it. If you build a website and pay for hosting, ultimately you own and control that website and can do with it as you please. Technically, you don’t own your Facebook business page; Facebook does. It is a free platform that you have been given the privilege of using. Sure Facebook is a giant right now, but what if it disappears tomorrow. All of the work that you have taken to build a community will be gone, with no website to back you up. Plus, you are at the mercy of Facebook. You never know what might be considered a violation of their terms of service, which could cause them to remove your page. The odds of this are slim, but is it a chance worth taking?
  1. Facebook can change – Even if your Facebook page is safe, the platform is known for making rather large changes without any notice. Back in February they made major upgrades to the business pages which caught everyone off guard. Most of the changes were rather positive, but in the past there have been changes that have left users and businesses confused, and often with a loss of functionality. With a website, you know what you have. Any changes to a platform like WordPress are less frequent and much more manageable, and your site stays pretty much the same.
  1. Facebook has limitations –

There is only so much you can do on Facebook. For instance, I’ve been frustrated by an inability to upload pdf documents. There is a limit to the length of videos. Sure you can do a lot, and there is a lot of functionality you can add through third party apps, but there are limitations. Plus, you are also bound by rather strict rules on things like contests and promotions. On a website you have very few limitations. Additionally, a website affords you the opportunity to build special areas including private log-in areas for employees and customers.

  1. Analytics –

Facebook has done a decent job of offering some “insights” or analytics to help us better understand the amount and type of traffic we are getting on our pages. But much of it is open to great interpretation as much is based on “impressions”. You can’t really tell who is visiting your page. Analytics are important as you study traffic patterns, inbound links, time spent on site, and even know very specific information from your visitors. You can do a lot with Google Analytics, but we can supply very accurate  web statistics.

  1. Not EVERYONE is on Facebook –

There are a lot of people NOT on Facebook that need your business.

  1. SEO –

This is a big one: Search Engine Optimization. While Google and the other search engines do index Facebook business pages, they don’t carry the weight of a website. You can do some things to optimize a Facebook page for the search engines, but it’s a lot harder to “get found” that way when people are searching for keywords within your business category. A website is much better for getting found.

  1. Blogging and other content –

You can try to blog on Facebook, but again, it’s a lot harder to get found that way. A blog, videos, online press releases, and other content can be put on a website, adding great SEO value as mentioned above. This could also include pdfs and e-books.

 

  1. Your competitors –

If your competitors have a website and are on Facebook, they will be a step ahead of you. Plus, there is always the chance that your users will be confronted with ads for your competitors right there on your own Facebook page. That can’t happen on your website!

  1. Are you prepared for the challenge? –

For the most part, and this is changing, your website is fairly static. While you should be making changes and updates to your site, they can be done on a more relaxed basis. With Facebook, because it is “social”, you only get out of it what you put into it. Engagement and community building need to be very proactive. You can’t create a Facebook page and just let it be. It is not a website. You need to be prepared to make the commitment to be on every day, adding content and responding to your community, and working to grow your community. If you aren’t prepared for that, a Facebook page might actually hurt you.

Our best advice is to have both a website and a Facebook page.

If your biggest objection to a website is the cost, just remember that things have changed. Yes, you can pay a lot for a great design and functionality, but with open platforms like self-hosted WordPress, you can build a highly functional, nice looking page for a very low price that is 100% Tax deductible.

Moving WordPress: Moving Your Site From a Subdirectory to the Root Directory

Moving WordPress: Moving Your Site From a Subdirectory to the Root Directory

Moving WordPress: Moving Your Site From a Subdirectory to the Root Directory

There are times when you need to create a WordPress site in a subdirectory and not the root directory for the domain it’s hosted on. I sometimes do this if I’m developing a new WordPress site to replace a static site, and I want to leave the static site in place while giving the client access to the new site during development for approval. Even if you do your development work locally, you may sometimes need to do this.

When you come to make the site live, you don’t want its URL to bemysite.com/subdirectory—you want it to be mysite.com. So you might think you have to manually move the site from its subdirectory to the site’s root directory.

The good news is that you don’t. You can leave the site exactly where it is and just tell WordPress what you’ve done by making a few changes to settings and minor edits to a couple of files. It just takes five minutes or less.

What You’ll Need

To follow this tutorial, you’ll need:

  • an installation of WordPress that’s ready to go live
  • an FTP client or CPanel File manager
  • a code editor

This method will work on a standard installation of WordPress, and will work with most frameworks or if you’re using a parent and child theme structure.

Beware! This method will not work for Multisite installations, which should always be in the root directory.

Before You Start

Before doing this, it’s a good idea to make a backup of your site, just in case. Use your preferred backup plugin to do this. And if you haven’t installed a backup plugin prior to going live, you really should!

Getting Rid of the Old Site

Does your client have a horrible, outdated, static site that they’ve hired you to update and move to WordPress? Now’s the time to consign it to history.

Removing a Static Site

If there is an existing static site in the root directory, delete the files for it. I tend to make a backup locally just in case my client decides they need something from the old site, although this hasn’t happened yet.

Removing a WordPress Site

If there’s an existing WordPress site in the root directory, you’ll need to remove it completely:

  • Drop (delete) the old site’s database using phpMyAdmin. You’ll probably have two databases: one for the old site and one for the new. If you’re not sure which is which, check the wp-config.php file for the old site and it will tell you which database to drop. For advice on deleting a database, see this thread on Stack Overflow.
  • Delete all of the WordPress files and folders in the root directory, being careful not to delete the folder your new site is in.
  • Beware: don’t do this until you have made a backup!

Editing Your New Site’s Settings

You’ll need to edit two settings in your new site: permalinks and the site address.

Turn off pretty permalinks in the Permalinks screen, which you’ll find in Settings > Permalinks. Do this by selecting the Default option and clicking Save Changes.

In Settings > General, change the address of your site but not the address of WordPress. For example, if you’ve been working on the site atexample.com/development, change the settings as follows:

  • WordPress address (URL): http://example.com/development
  • Site Address (URL): http://example.com

Click the Save changes button and move on to the next steps before trying to access your site.

Editing and Copying Files

Before you can access your site, you’ll need to make minor edits to a couple of files, so that WordPress knows where to find the site.

Copying the Files

Using FTP or CPanel file manager, copy (don’t move) the following files from your WordPress directory to the root directory:

  • index.php
  • .htaccess, if you have one. If there isn’t an .htaccess file (and the fact that you’ve turned off pretty permalinks means you’re less likely to have one), don’t worry about creating one—just skip this step.

Editing index.php

Edit the index.php file that you’ve moved. You could do this by:

  • editing it in situ after the move, using an FTP client or cPanel file manager
  • downloading it from the subdirectory, editing it and then uploading it to the root directory—instead of making a copy

The edit you need to make is to one line at the end of the file. Find the line that reads as follows:

1 require (‘./wp-blog-header.php)

Change it to:

1 require (‘./subdirectoryname/wp-blog-header.php)

So if you’ve been developing in example.com/development, just change the line to:

1 require (‘./development/wp-blog-header.php)

Save the new index.php file.

Final Steps

Back in the WordPress admin screens, turn pretty permalinks on again, with whatever settings you need for your site.

Visit the root domain of your site in the browser and it will display the site that’s stored in the subdirectory, but won’t show this in the URL, which will be displayed as the root URL. And that’s it!

Summary

As you can see, moving WordPress from a subdirectory to the root directory is incredibly simple and doesn’t actually require you to move WordPress. Just change some settings, copy and edit a couple of files, and you’re good to go.

What South Africans buy on the Internet

What South Africans buy on the Internet

The latest Effective Measure statistics reveal the most popular products bought online in SA.

Effective Measure recently released its November 2015 statistics, which show that the most popular products purchased online are tickets, books, hotel reservations, and music/movies.

Effective Measure is the official traffic measurement partner of the IAB South Africa, and provides accurate traffic and demographics statistics for South Africa’s top websites.

The group’s recent Internet demographics statistics are based on 280,400 online surveys completed by local Internet users.

The stats reveal that 46% of South African Internet users purchased tickets for shows or sport events online.

45% of local Internet users purchased books online, while the same percentage bought travel tickets for flights, buses, and trains.

26% of South Africa’s Internet population said they do not purchase anything online.

Items Purchased via Internet
Tickets for shows or sport events 45.71%
Books 45.42%
Travel Tickets: Bus, Train, Flights, Boat 45.29%
Hotel Reservations 37.98%
DVDs, Videos, Music (CD, K7, MP3’s) 34.29%
None of the above 25.53%
Holiday package 22.89%
Software 22.54%
Flowers / Gifts 19.16%
Toys and games 14.53%
Clothes and accessories 13.91%
Health and Beauty Products 12.96%
Food 10.22%
Computers 10.07%
Domain names, hosting services 9.01%
Cars, Motorbikes, Bicycles 7.79%
Mass market electronics: TV, Radios, Mobile, HiFi 7.65%
PC or Console Video games 7.34%
Ringtones, games or Icons for Mobile phones 7.03%
Sport shoes, Sport clothes 5.97%
Real Estate / Property 4.77%
Alcoholic beverages 4.01%
Art objects 2.60%
Internet usage
E-Mail 89.45%
Banking 68.23%
Research / Obtaining information 63.79%
Reading news / magazine articles online 59.75%
Social Networking 51.02%
Shopping 33.72%
Job Search 28.34%
Directory Services 25.98%
Music downloads 24.49%
Instant Messaging 20.26%
Chat 19.57%
Listen to the radio online 15.15%
Watch TV and Videos online 14.70%
Podcast / Video downloads 12.28%
Blogging 9.27%
Share Trading 7.44%
Dating 2.79%
Gambling 1.42%
None of the above 0.87%