Small Business Sees A Rise In Cyber Threats

Come on, let’s all live in the real world: we’re all vulnerable. Really the only chance you have these days is to make it as difficult as possible for any potential hacker to get to your valuable data. First and foremost this means protecting your data in transit. Using secured connections to transmit data is crucial to any protection strategy. In web terms that means having an SSL certificate installed. There are some variations but most provide 128 or 256 bit encryption which has been relatively reliable, although security loopholes were recently discovered.

Fixed? Yes, but can we be sure. The heartbleed bug went undetected for some time. What else could be lurking out there that we haven’t discovered yet?

Secondly, protect sensitive data at rest. This means encrypting your database. We like to use AES256 encryption. It isn’t foolproof, but it is strong and recommended by everyone’s favorite secret organization, the NSA.

Third, protect your passwords. This means letting your staff know how important keeping this data safe. Don’t leave passwords out in the open and, for the love of everything holy, make them strong. “123456” is not a password (we feel we should not have to mention at this point, but still will, that “password” is not clever… and never was). Keep your passwords safe – sometimes it’s best to create a little song to remember it. Or if you have many passwords, create an algorithm to remember them by. For instance, use the name of the domain you’re accessing to configure a password. If you were logging into Livewiregeeks.com, you might use the L and S as the first two letters of your password, then add some variation, take the numerical representation of that letter and att that to the password. So for a domain called ABC.com, if might be AC321 (the numbers being C=3, B=2, A=1 , added together =5). As long as you remember the process of creating the password, you don’t have to remember anything else. Just looking at the domain will enable to to know the password.

Tedious? yes. Works? yes.

Some more information on the current cyber security situation.

More Web Design Blog Content
casual business people shaking hands at work meeting - multiethnic people in collaboration

Why Every Business Association Needs a Professional Website

Business associations serve as the backbone of local commerce—supporting members, organizing events, and advocating for economic growth. Yet many associations still rely on outdated websites or worse, none at all. In 2025, that’s a missed opportunity. A modern, functional website is essential for visibility, engagement, and growth. At

Adding a Fee in Woocommerce

This piggybacks off of a solution I found elsewhere. We modified it to add a single fee for products based on the taxonomy. It comes in handy to categories products and then apply this rule to that category. function action_woocommerce_checkout_calculate_fees( $cart ) { // Initialize $quantity = 0;

Search Engine Optimization

More important than ever and we’re at the leading edge. One of our best success stories is Rose Petals Nursery. We’ve been doing optimization for them for some time now with some great results. We’re dominating from top to bottom. Just check out this high level, competitive keyword: Old Garden

WP: Adding a HTML5 Search Form

A simple script from your local Gainesville Web Designer. [code scroll=”false” language=”htmml”] <form role=”search” method=”get” class=”search-form” action=”<?php echo home_url( ‘/’ ); ?>”> <label> <span class=”screen-reader-text”><?php echo _x( ‘Search for:’, ‘label’ ) ?></span> <input type=”search” class=”search-field” placeholder=”<?php echo esc_attr_x( ‘Search …’, ‘placeholder’ ) ?>” value=”<?php echo get_search_query() ?>” name=”s” title=”<?php echo esc_attr_x( ‘Search

Maintaining The Correct Keyword Density

Keyword density, by definition, is the number of times, expressed in a percentage, that a particular keyphrase or keyword appears in a body of text. So if your keyword appears 4 times and the number of words on the page is 200 then your keyword density is 2%.

Choosing The Right Domain

Finding the right domain can be a arduous process. That is, unless of course you are lucky enough to find your business name in the exact form you desire. More often than not, obtaining a great domain takes a lot f time, mental energy and cautious anxiety. Will