Useful website tips

If you have the PayPal Payment facility on your website then you will have noted that it now has a “Please transition to the updated PayPal settings by configuring them within the “WP Accept PayPal Payment” plugin’s settings menu” message next to it.

This is because the WP PayPal Payment plugin has recently been updated and now needs to be connected via API to continue working.

This must be done by yourself but it is easy to do, if you have not already done it.

In the Dashboard go to Settings / WP PayPal Payment / PayPal PPCP (New API) tab and click on the “Get PayPal Live Credentials” blue button – see printscreen below:

With your PayPal account email and password to hand, follow the instructions to activate API access until it says “Live account is connected.”

The PayPal Payment facility should now take payments as before.

IONOS recently updated the PHP version on all our website domains to 8.0. PHP is the program which runs behind WordPress.

On a few websites this has meant that the Contact Form no longer sends correctly. If you could test the Contact Form on your website and make sure it sends correctly?

If it doesn’t, just let me know and I will push back the PHP version on your domain name to 7.4 so that it sends correctly.

There have recently been lots of spam emails sent by spambots claiming to be from IONOS and asking clients to click on a link to reset their password. If you receive such emails please do not click on any links and delete the email.

A reminder that as a CPHT client you will never receive an email from IONOS directly – all emails are sent to ourselves – and any you do receive from IONOS will be spam – potentially harmful – and must be deleted immediately with absolutely no action taken.

If you have clicked on the Reset password link in the email please let me now and I will reset your password manually. Otherwise you may be locked out of your website.

A Google My Business (GMB) account is very important for your Practice because it means you appear on Google Map results as well as allowing you to get Google Reviews. It also lets Google know where you are practising, which is good for your local SEO.

If you have not already set up your GMB account click here to set yours up, making sure you add your Practice details (address etc) as closely to your website details as possible, as Google likes consistency, and choosing “Hypnotherapy service” as the Business category.

If you have already set up your GMB account check your Google Map which appears underneath your Contact details on your website. It should say your GMB name next to the red pointer. If it says your address instead then let me know and I will update your Google Map.

A number of clients have recently requested the possibility of booking 1/2 hour or hour-long Zoom sessions with us so we have now added this option to our Premium Features.

Do you wish to add a new feature to your website? Talk about a new Booking calendar? Add new MP3s? Talk about Google? How do I add a YouTube video to my website?

Sometimes it’s easier to have a Zoom Call rather than sending an email so don’t hesitate to use this option.

Cost : £30/ 30mins – £60 / hour

There have been a number of reports lately of emails received supposedly from IONOS saying that due to some updates to IONOS terms and policies a file must be downloaded and ticked otherwise emails can no longer be received or sent.

These are scam emails and must not be acted upon, but deleted. You will never normally receive legitimate emails from IONOS as any that need dealing with are sent directly to us at CPHT Websites.

IONOS have recently changed their email security settings meaning you must tick SSL/TLS in the incoming / outgoing IMAP server settings to continue receiving/sending emails.

For most Email clients this is activated by default but if you have problems sending or receiving emails (i.e. Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.), it could be because of this.

For Outlook in particular the outgoing server settings have changed slightly:

• Untick Require logon using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)
• Tick My outgoing (SMTP) server requires authentication – as below

If this proves too technical and you need help then just contact me and we will set up a quick Zoom call.

In the meantime a quick way to continue accessing your emails is to use IONOS Webmail by going to https://mail.ionos.co.uk/ and entering your Email address and Password.

If you are not experiencing problems sending or receiving emails then please ignore this Post.

Today’s email inboxes often have a high level of filtering which means that some of the emails that you send to clients unintentionally go into their Spam folder.

To reduce the risk of this happening we have added an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) DNS record to all our CPHT Websites client domains. SPF is an email-authentication technique that notifies all recipient inboxes that the sender is a trustworthy IONOS domain and not Spam.

This measure should minimise the risk of your emails going into clients’ Spam folders.

Another solution is to add a Telephone field to your website Contact form. In this way you can call your client afterwards to make sure they have received your email. Let me know if you wish have a Telephone field on your Contact form and I will add it in.

With over 150 websites created to date, CPHT Websites has expanded considerably since we started in 2015 and now designs on average 2-3 websites per month. We are very grateful for your custom and continuing trust.

This increase in business, coupled with the fact that CPHT Websites is now part of CPHT (SW) Ltd, means that from the 1st January 2022 we will be obliged to apply 20% VAT to all our fees.

This will mean for example that the standard Renewal fee of £49 will increase to £59. Because the invoicing will henceforth be managed by CPHT (SW) Ltd you will however now have the possibility of paying your Renewal fee by bank transfer or standing order.

We apologise for this inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

If you have an Instagram feed widget installed on your website you may have noticed that it occasionally “disconnects” i.e. it not longer shows the latest images you have posted on your Instagram page. When this happens it is very easy to reconnect it by doing the following:

1 – Open a tab in your web browser and login to your Instagram account on your computer.

2 – Open another tab, login to your website WordPress Dashboard and click on Instagram Feed / Settings – see image below.

3 – Click the blue Connect an Instagram Account button to connect your Instagram account to your website. Once the two are connected, you should see a “Successfully connected” button appear.

4 – Visit your website and refresh it – the Instagram feed widget should be reconnected and show the latest images from your Instagram page.

If you receive an email which looks as though it has come from IONOS you should delete it without opening it or clicking on any links.

These emails are generated by scamming robots who send out to all info@… emails and may be sent to your email, if it starts with info@. They will often ask you to verify your email or renew your domain name by clicking on a link.

IONOS will never send you anything directly – we take care of all things that concern your domain name and emails (renewal etc), and we are the only ones in contact with IONOS.

We are in the process of migrating all our IONOS Hosting contracts from Shared Hosting to Dedicated Hosting, which provides more website performance and vastly increased file count size. This last factor is necessary due to WordPress and plugins being constantly update to larger file versions.

For most CPHT client websites this should be a seamless process. Any downtime will be remedied as quickly as we can. All website files/emails/email histories/passwords etc will be carried over automatically. If you do however get a password error message in your mailbox just let me know and I will re-enter your password manually.

This migration will mean we won’t have to upgrade the hosting contracts for at least ten years and will provide superior website performance.

Our IONOS CPHT Websites hosting account has recently been upgraded to include free SSL Certificates (https) with all website domains so this has been activated free of charge on all existing CPHT client websites.

SSL, short for Secure Sockets Layer, protects your website data from being hacked. Your website address will start with “https”, have a little padlock icon  next to it, and be termed “secure” by Google, which improves your page ranking.

If an SSL certificate had already been activated on your website you will no longer be billed separately for this.

With the advent of Coronavirus more and more hypnotherapy sessions are being carried out online, using Zoom or Skype.

If this is your case, you can add your session audio to your website MP3 page so that clients can listen to the background music from their own computer/tablet/smartphone during hypnosis, adjusting the volume to whatever suits them best, rather than listening to the the background music through Zoom.

If you wish to add your session audio to your website, simply send me your audio MP3 file via wetransfer.com and I will add it to your MP3 page.

With the increase of online hypnotherapy sessions (Zoom etc), you might find it useful to add a PayPal payment facility to your website Sessions & Prices page so that clients can pay online either by card or using their PayPal account if they have one.

The facility uses the WP Easy Paypal Payment Accept plugin. Rather than clicking on PayPal buttons the client selects the session type from a dropdown list and clicks “Pay Now” – see example below:

For me to install this facility on your website you need to set up a PayPal account, and then provide me with your PayPal account email, indicating which sessions/prices you wish added to the dropdown list. A maximum of six sessions/prices can be added.

For the past month or so a Coronavirus Banner has been added to the Cookie Notice banner settings which you can activate if you wish.

It displays data about the Coronavirus pandemic and five steps recommended by the WHO (World Health Organisation) to help flatten the Coronavirus curve.

To activate the banner go to the WordPress Dashboard / Settings / Cookie Notice and tick the various boxes in the “Corona Banner” settings. This is where you can also deactivate the Coronavirus banner if you have activated it by mistake.

In light of the Covid-19 epidemic, many hypnotherapists are now making online hypnotherapy sessions available (using Zoom or Facetime etc) and some of you may wish to mention this in your Google description, ie the grey sentence which appears in your Google snippet.

In the Google snippet below the Google description for CPHT Websites is “CPHT Websites provides an all-in-one Websites for Hypnotherapists Package which includes website+hosting+domain name for only £450 + £49/year”.

Say you wish to add “Online sessions now available” to your Google description. All you have to do is update your Homepage settings :

1. Login to your WordPress Dashboard and click Visit Site top left. Make sure you are on your website Homepage and click Edit Page middle top bar.
2. Scroll down to the All in One SEO Pack box and manually update the Description field (see image below) by adding, for example, “Online sessions now available” at the end of the Description. Remember not to use more than 160 characters otherwise the end of your Description might not appear in your Google search results snippet.
3. Save your update by clicking the blue Update button top right.

After 2-3 days the amended description should appear in Google search results. You can tweak it if necessary by repeating the procedure above. Your Google description can be amended at any time, any number of times so don’t hesitate to update it when necessary (telephone number / address change etc.).

Mobile menu

The mobile menu on all CPHT client websites has been updated to a “slide out” menu. This allows for better scrolling down in the case of long sub menus. Please check your mobile menu to ensure it operates correctly.

Telephone hyperlinks

The telephone numbers on all CPHT client websites have been “hyperlinked” ie they can now be clicked on when viewed on a smartphone and the number will dial automatically. This was already the case on Apple devices which “picked up” telephone numbers intuitively but on android devices the numbers need to be hardcoded, which is what I have done. Telephone numbers appear in the Secondary menu and in the right sidebar Contact details widget.

If you have an Instagram account and wish to add it to your website to the right sidebar (like the Facebook and Twitter widgets) then I can set this up for you.

1 – Notify me that you wish to add an Instagram feed and I will install the Instagram plugin and widget.

2 – Once I have notified you that the above has been carried out, login to your Instagram account on your computer.

3 – Then login to your website WordPress Dashboard and click on Instagram Feed / Settings.

4 – Click the blue Connect an Instagram Account button – see image below – to connect your Instagram account to your website. Once the two are connected, you should see a “Successfully connected” button appear.

5 – Visit your website – the Instagram feed widget should appear in the right sidebar.

By default the feed shows the latest image from your Instagram account but you can show more images by changing the Settings. Instagram feeds disconnect occasionally. If you notice the feed is no longer showing your latest Instagram image you will need to repeat the Connection step above.

NB : Previous Instagram feeds may no longer function due to Instagram recently changing feed protocol (May 2020) so if you already had an Instagram feed and wish to keep it then you will have to apply the above.

Just a quick Post to inform you of some website updates that have been automatically applied to CPHT websites at the start of 2019.

1 – Google ReCaptcha 3

Google ReCaptchas are the “I am not a robot” boxes to tick when send a contact form. The contact form on your website now uses ReCaptcha 3 instead of ReCaptcha 2. ReCaptcha 3 is more efficient at detecting Spam and doesn’t need ticking. It analyses contact form input in the background, automatically detecting if you are a spambot or not.

2 – PHP 7.2

Your website has been automatically upgraded to PHP 7.2, in line with the latest PHP release. PHP is the language which WordPress uses to operate.

3 – The demise of Google+

Lastly Google has decide to pull the plug on Google+ (Google’s alternative to Facebook) as interest has been steadily declining over the years. The Google+ sharing button has been automatically removed from the list of standard sharing buttons that appear at the bottom of your website pages.

WordPress 5.0 was released last month and your website has automatically updated to it. Many of you will already have noticed that the Edit Page Editor has changed in look and feel.

It is now a “block” editor, the idea being you can create one or more text blocks which you can then drag and drop / reorder to suit the page look. Apart from that the new editor has no new features.

The Add Media button is now an icon along with the other Word icons and switching between Visual and Text tabs is now accessed by clicking on the 3 dots top right :

By default the Visual Editor is always activated, and you should rarely, if ever, need to activate the Text / Code Editor (used for html code).

You should find it pretty easy using the new block editor. If however you prefer the old editor just let me know and I will install a plugin on your site to reinstate it.

At CPHT Websites customer satisfaction is very important and we are always seeking to improve our services. If you have any suggestions for improvement then please let us know and we will see if they can be implemented.

If you are happy with our website services (website creation / hosting / technical support etc) then we would gratefully appreciate a review from you. Showing the review on our website will help us gain new clients and build our business. Just a few lines are sufficient !

Simply send us an email with your review. Thank you for your time.

Yes. Occasionally you may have noticed when logging into your WordPress Dashboard little red circles with numbers in them in the left hand menu bar, or an invitation to update WordPress “Please update now”, or GeneratePress “Update now”. This means that updates are available which haven’t been installed.

Normally you don’t have to worry about updates as WordPress, GeneratePress or Plugin updates are carried out automatically thanks to the “Advanced Automatic Update” plugin but sometimes for whatever reason an automatic update fails hence the red circles.

There is no risk to your website you carrying out the update yourself, and it’s good security practice to keep all the plugins and WordPress up to date, so if you do see the red circles click on the option next to them (plugins…) and click “Update now”. Also feel free to update WordPress whenever prompted to – you don’t need to do a backup of the website before doing this.

When searches are carried out on Google the results are displayed in a list of what are called “Google snippets”. If I search for cphtwebsites on Google.co.uk I get the following results display :

Google snippets are made up of a blue SEO title, a green page link, and a grey SEO description. By default Google will create its own SEO description of your page – usually excerpts from various paragraphs – and sometimes this renders nonsensical. It is therefore a good idea to make sure the SEO description of your homepage is 100% pertinent to your practice.

Start by searching for your practice domain name in Google and see what SEO description appears in the snippet. If the description is nonsensical then you need to manually enter your own SEO description. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and Edit the homepage. Scroll down to the All in One SEO Pack box and manually fill in the Description field (see image below). A good homepage description would be (for example) :

John Smith HPD AfSFH is a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist based in Peckham, London. Tel 0123 456 789 to book a free initial consultation.

… but it’s entirely up to you. As you can see below the SEO description entered manually for the CPHT Websites homepage is “CPHT Websites provides an all-in-one Websites for Hypnotherapists Package which includes website+hosting+domain name for only £450 + £49/year”. You can also enter key words for your homepage. Once finished, Update the page. There is also a shortcut to defining the SEO descriptions / keywords for all pages by going to Pages / All pages.

You don’t have to manually define the SEO description for all of your pages but it’s a good idea to do this at least for the homepage, which is the page that Google will usually show first in the search results.

The new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy will apply from 25/05/2018. It strengthens laws about data protection and gives citizens control over their personal data, notably the right to have it deleted.

Your CPHT website collects information from clients via :
– the contact page : name, email address (stored in DB Contact)
– the Blog subscription service : email address (stored with WordPress.com)

It also uses a certain number of cookies to monitor how visitors navigate on your website. It is therefore important to have a Privacy Policy which explains why such data is being collected, how it is used and the steps to take should a person wish to have it deleted.

The Privacy Policy below is standard to all CPHT Websites, and can be added to your website simply by creating a New Page called “Privacy Policy” and copying the text below. You will need to edit what is between brackets in the first two paragraphs, and feel free to make amendments to the Policy as you see fit.

Once you have created your Privacy Policy page, let me know and I will add a link to it in your website footer as well as in a Privacy and Cookies bar.

NB : This Privacy Policy is a derivative of a free one generated here https://gdprprivacypolicy.net. It is meant purely as a documentation tool and CPHT Websites does not assume any liability for its content.

—————————————————-

This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by [Company name], accessible at [Your website address], and how we use it.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us through email at [Your email address].

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

We are a Data Controller of your information.

Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the Personal Information we collect and the specific context in which we collect the information:

• Our needs to perform a contract with you
• You have given us permission to do so
• Processing your personal information is in our legitimate interests
• We need to comply with the law

Personal data that we process shall not be kept for longer than is necessary. We will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our policies.

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. If you wish to be informed what Personal Information we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us by email.

Your Rights

In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights :

• The right to access, update or to delete the information we have on you.
• The right of rectification.
• The right to object.
• The right of restriction.
• The right to data portability
• The right to withdraw consent

Contact Form

When you contact us via our website Contact form, we will collect your name and email address. By using the Contact Form you consent to us using this information for correspondence purposes, notably to discuss your interest in Hypnotherapy treatment and to book an appointment. To have your email deleted from our records, please contact us by email.

Blog Subscription Service

When you sign up to our Blog Subscription service, we will collect your email address. By using the Blog Suscription service you consent to us using this information in order to send you by email our Blog Posts as and when they are published. To unsubscribe and have your email deleted from this service, either click “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of a Blog Post email, or contact us by email.

Testimonials

Subject to your prior consent, we may publish information you provide about treatment you received from us as a Testimonial on our website. Such information may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such information by others. To have your testimonial deleted from our website please contact us by email.

Cookies

Like any other website, our website uses ‘cookies’. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.

You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. More information on how to do this can be found by visiting the following links :

• https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
• http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
• https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
• https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and
• https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).

Note that if you block cookies, some features of our website may not be available to you.

Links to other sites

Our website may contain links to other sites (Facebook, Twitter, PayPal etc). Our Privacy Policy does not apply to other websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these other sites for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options.

Log Files

Our website follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Children’s Information

We do not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 18. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This privacy policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information shared and/or collected online. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.

Consent

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, and we invite you to check this page periodically to ensure you are happy with any changes to it.

Widgets are the blocks of information that appear in the Right Sidebar of your website’s pages (your Text (Photo+Info) / Facebook Feed / Twitter Feed etc.). By default they appear on all your pages (see example here) but you have the possibility of removing them from certain pages to unclutter that page (see example here).

How to remove the entire Right Sidebar (ie all widgets) from a page

In the WordPress Dashboard go to Pages / All pages. Click on the page from which you wish to remove the Right Sidebar. In Edit Page mode click on Screen Options top right and make sure the Sidebar Layout box is ticked. Scroll down to Sidebar Layout middle right (see image below) and tick Content (no sidebars). Click Update and view your page – the Right Sidebar no longer appears.

How to remove a certain widget from a certain page

Go to Appearance / Widgets in the WordPress Dashboard. In the Right Sidebar box click on the small arrow on the right of the rectangle of the widget in question to open up that widget (see image below). Click on Visibility. Select Hide. Select Page. Select the page in question from the list. Click Save.

In the example below I have decided to remove my Text (Photo/Info) widget from my Useful Website Tips page.

By default your website uses the Open Sans typeface or font (find out more here ) which, according to Google, is “optimized for legibility across print, web, and mobile interfaces”. You can however change your website’s typeface if you wish, as well as the size of the wording – Font size – very easily using the Theme Customiser.

In the WordPress Dashboard go to Appearance / Customise / Typography / Body. By default Font family is set at Open Sans. Select a different font from the list – the website preview on the right will show what the new font looks like. Further down you can set the Font size to the desired size.

Changing the Body Font family will change the font on the entire site, including the menus, widgets etc as these elements inherit the Body Font family. If you wish to keep Open Sans in the main menu for example go to Appearance / Customise / Typography / Primary Navigation and Select Open Sans instead of inherit in the Font Family.

Changing the Body Font size will only change the Font size on your pages, not on your widgets. To change your widgets’ Font size go to Appearance / Customise / Typography / Widgets / Content font size.

Click the blue Save & Publish to save the changes you have made to your website in the Customiser.

Lastly, always use the Customiser to change Font Family / Size on your website’s pages rather than individually editing pages in Edit Page mode. Otherwise if one day you decide to change your website’s font size or family you will have to edit all your pages individually.

SEO, standing for Search Engine Optimization, determines Page Ranking, or where your website appears on the Google search result pages when someone looks for, say, “hypnotherapy in london”. Your WordPress website already has a number of SEO plugins pre-installed like All-in-one SEO, which automatically sends an XML sitemap to Google whenever your website is updated and allows you to tweak your Google snippet, and WP Super Cache, which speeds up your website’s display speed. And your website is responsive, ie mobile friendly, which is also taken into account by Google.

In fact, there are more than 200 factors that enter into the Google equation and it can get quite complex but here are some simple tips that can be carried out by yourself which will help your page ranking.

1 – Updating your Google snippet
Your Google snippet is how your website will appear in Google search results. By default your website Homepage comes with a predefined Meta Description which you are free to keep, however you may wish to update the Description at some point. Go to the Homepage Edit Page mode, scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings / General, update your Meta Description, and Update the page. We would always advise mentioning your name, the word “hypnotherapy” or “hypnotherapist”, and where you practise in your Meta Description.

2 – Sign up to Google My Business (free)
This will help with your local SEO, by informing Google that you run a Hypnotherapy practice in your locality, and will allow you to appear in the top Map search results which show map locations, and allow clients to leave you Google Reviews. Go to https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/business/. Make sure the practice name / address details / email / telephone number(s) you enter on Google My Business are exactly the same as on your website, and fill in as much information / photos as you can.

3 – Sign up to Google Ads (payable)
Having a Google Ads campaign running will allow your website to appear in the Ad results that Google displays at the top of its search results. They are relatively easy to set up and you can define the budget you wish to allocate per month as well as the zone covered. Click here for the official Google Ads website which explains how to start a campaign.

4 – Have “Hypnotherapy” appear in the homepage title
It sounds obvious but it is a good idea to have hypnotherapy in the homepage title eg John Smith Hypnotherapy. It’s also advisable to have hypnotherapy naturally appear in the homepage opening paragraph and a couple more times in the text which follows. However it mustn’t appear like keyword cramming, otherwise you might be penalized by Google. As a rule a page which is about Anxiety should have Anxiety in the title, and also have the word appear 2-3 times in the text content.

5 – Use images on pages
Adding images to pages is useful for breaking up long blocks of text, and also filling out pages which don’t have a lot of text so always make sure each page has at least one image on it. Google will take it into account. We recommend pixabay.com , pexels.com or unsplash.com for free images (see also 16 Best Free Stock Images Websites for Commercial Use), but best to stay clear of images which have recognisable faces on them – see https://pixabay.com/en/blog/posts/public-domain-images-what-is-allowed-and-what-is-4/ Lastly, when you insert an image into a page make sure you fill in the Alt Text field middle right of the Insert Media box, explaining the image e.g. Anxiety at the workplace. This is called Image Optimization. Alt text is mainly used for people with hearing impediments who use screen readers.

6 – Incoming links to your website or “backlinks”
Links are the blue hyperlinks which take you from one page/website to another when you click on them. Outgoing links are not necessarily beneficial to your SEO but incoming links, or backlinks, are, so if you are a member of any authoritative organisations (AfSFH, CNCH, NCH etc) make sure there is a link to your website from theirs. Habitually this will be on your personal info page on their website. Likewise, if someone publishes an article on you make sure they mention your website address somewhere, and if you have friends or acquaintances with similar-topic websites it’s a good idea to exchange links (link relevancy).

7 – Maintain a Blog
Regularly posted articles (at least once monthly) will help your SEO and keep your site “alive”. Once you publish an article you can share it to your Facebook page by clicking the FB Share button underneath the article – meaning you don’t have to re-write it. You have to be logged in to your Facebook page to do this. In Edit Post mode if you scroll down to the All In One SEO Pack Social Settings tab you can choose which image to include in the Facebook Post Share.

8 – Make your website as informative and easy to read as possible
The more your website is well written, informative, with a clear layout and good page content length, the better your SEO. Google’s algorithms are programmed to recognize a well-written site. Take the time to rewrite certain parts of it, or add to it as your practice develops. Make use of bullet points, sub-headings, blockquotes and make sure sentences end with a full stop. Make your website interesting to read as well; the longer visitors stay on your site (dwell time) – even if they don’t become immediate clients – the better your Google page ranking.

9 – Third party help
If you wish to take SEO further we would recommend doing a Google search for SEO service providers in and around where you are based and see what payments plans they offer. Best to talk face to face with them if possible, explaining that your website is WordPress-based, and see how they operate. Some SEO companies do ongoing SEO for a monthly fee (organic SEO ie creating Posts on your website and Social media Twitter, Facebook etc, ) some charge a one-off fee to “optimize” your site (titles, alts etc), sometimes by installing the specific WordPress SEO plugins (WP Rocket etc).

Hyperlinks are the ubiquitous blue links on websites that when clicked on take you to another website page.

Generally speaking it’s better for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization ie your ranking on Google, Bing etc) to have links coming into your website rather than going out to other sites… but if you wish to add links to your website for whatever reason here is how to do it.

Hyperlinks can be either external ie to a different website from yours, or internal ie to a different page on your own website.

Go to the page or post you wish to add the link(s) to and enter Edit Page or Edit Post mode. Make sure you are on the Visual tab. Double click on the word or sentence you wish to turn into a hyperlink and make sure it is highlighted in blue. Click on the Insert/edit link in the icons toolbar (looks like a chain link – see right). Click on the grey Link options cog. This will open up the Insert/edit Link box (see below).

For external links – In the URL box enter the complete address of the page you are linking to eg http://www.cpht.co.uk/top-ten-reasons-choose-cpht/ and tick the “Open link in a new tab” box. Click Add Link.

For internal links – in the list of pages in the box underneath select the page to link to. Click Add Link.

Lastly don’t forget to Update your page.

Your CPHT website comes a professional email related to your domain name (eg angus@cphtwebsites.co.uk). It is set up as a 1and1 Mailbox and can be used in a number of ways.

1 – Email Forward
You can have it as a simple forward to an existing email you use (Hotmail, Yahoo etc), but when you reply it won’t be your professional email that clients see.

2 – Add it to your existing email account
By adding your professional email as an extra account to your email client (Outlook, Apple Mail etc) you receive and send using your professional email. To set this up you will need your Email IMAP settings I sent you with your website login details (contact me if you need to retrieve your Password).

As a reminder here they are :

User name	your professional email
Password	xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Incoming Server	imap.ionos.co.uk
Incoming port (SSL must be activated)	993
Outgoing server (SMTP)	smtp.ionos.co.uk
Outgoing port (TLS must be activated)	587
Outgoing server requires authentication	Yes

Here are some specific email client setting-up links :
iPhone / iPad Apple Mail /Android / Outlook / Blackberry / Thunderbird etc
Sky Yahoo Mail (Manage Multiple Email Accounts)

If you wish to add add an email account to Gmail the Incoming Server is pop.1and1.co.uk

3 – 1and1 Webmail
You can also login to your online 1and1 Webmail email account here using your email and password. This way you also receive and send using your professional email, and you can also login from any computer, as long as it is online.

The above 3 options are cumulative, and you can add emails to your account at no extra cost (3 max). Lastly you can always change the prefix on your present professional email at any time if you wish (the bit before the @). And if you wish to use your personal email (Hotmail, Yahoo etc) on your website instead, you can as well.

If you need any help with the above just get in touch – we can always set up a Skype session.

Your Gravatar, or “globally recognized avatar”, is an image that represents you online. It appears on your website’s Blog page, and also in the emails which are sent out whenever you post a new article.

To find out what your Gravatar looks like, go to your Blog page and have a look underneath the title of any article. Your will see the date and also the author – ie yourself. When you click on your name a box opens with your photo and some biographical info about yourself. If all you get is your name with the “mystery grey face” then you need to do 2 things.

1 – Go to the Gravatar website to create your account, following the instructions here. Make sure the email you associate with your Gravatar account is the same email as your WordPress user Contact Info – go to Users / Your Profile in your WordPress Dashboard to find out which email this is.

2 – Next, in your WordPress Dashboard, go to Users / Your Profile and fill in your Biographical Info with a few lines about yourself.

Now go back to your website Blog and click on your name – you should see something like this :

Visitors often click on authors’ names when viewing blogs so it’s important to have a Gravatar. It also vastly improves the look of the email subscribers receive whenever you post a new article.