If you're running an ecommerce store or photo gallery site, image optimization is a MUST. Either to attract user eyeballs or increase your picture search traffic or improve your website loading speed, image optimization is playing an important role. We're not talking about the traditional SEO tactics for picture optimization on ALT description or image compression etc, that's not all enough, this article provides us an in-depth review for picture optimization.

Use Structure Data for Product image ALT

Most of the time we use default image number for picture names, especially when we have lots of pictures to upload. This is absolutely bad because search engine can not recognize the picture content so we lost the traffic from picture search. Instead, we need to provide structured description to it. For example if you're selling black iPhone 5S. How might people search? They might just search iphone 5s or black iphone directly. You can take a look at the google analysis suggestions for different keywords search data. Basically, people prefer to search "brand + product + series", so your picture ALT tag can be this format: alt="{brand name}-{product series}-{product number}". But please keep in mind, you just need to give rich description to the picture, you should not do keywords stuffing.

Different Angle Pictures

What about if I have taken several pictures to the same product? Should I use the same description? Yes and no, you just need to add direction in the end for example:

• black iphone 5s-front view
• black iphone 5s-side view
• black iphone 5s-back view

About picture large view

If you would like to provide large picture view for users, you must be careful. It's not suggested to put the large picture on your page and resize it via css. Although the picture is small, the actural size is still there and it will affect website loading speed. On the other hand, you can put a small picture directly then hyperlink to the large one. If you have too many pictures with big size, it's highly suggested use dedicated picture hosting service for guaranteed performance.

Compress your pictures

Look the following analysis first:

Most desktop computer or laptop users do not wait more than 3 seconds to load a website
No more 5 seconds waiting on mobile devices
Amazon will lose 1.6 billion if their website response speed slowed for 1 second
Search engines take website response speed into algorithm

But how much size is good for picture file? many professionals said under 70kb. No matter if it's a real standard, we should compress our picture when it does affect your website speed.

Use right picture format

There're 3 popular picture format: jpeg, gif and png. Let's see their difference

• JPEG(or jpg) is the most common format for high quality picture compression. If you have high requirement to picture on site, JPEG is much better than gif or png.
• GIF picture has less displaying quality comparing to jpeg. It's always used for simple display such as decorative pictures and cartoon pictures. gif is not suitable for high quality image compression.
• PNG is better than gif because the amount of supported colors. Especially for small images, png will not loose color but be able to deeply compress the file size.

So the basic conclusion is, jpeg has the best image quality, png less and gif the lest. So some tips for your website:

If you would like to show high quality product view, jpeg is perfect choice, you should never use gif picture for large view because when you do compression, colors will lost. gif is best for small cartoons. PNG can be alternative choice of jpeg and gif, especially you like to use small size, png is the best.

About Thumbnail

Most websites have thumbnails so visitors can view as more products as possible without navigating different pages. It's great solution, but it might affect your website loading, especially when its an online store. Two tips for thumbnail. a, compress it as much as you can because you don't need high quality view for it. b, no alt description for thumbnails because we only like to show the high quality product pictures to search engine.

Submit Image Map

Sometimes you need to use js functions for image display, but it's absolutely not friendly to search engine. To avoid such problem, you can submit an image map from webmaster tools center. Just make a little search on google and there're lots of great guidance for example this google guideline.

Pay attention to democrative images

Some non product related images like background, button and border images should be considered for optimization. You need to check if they have big size that already affected the website loading. Some tips for optimization such images

Use png or gif for simple decorative images like borders.
Use css as much as you can instead images.
It's not recommended to set background image. If it's a must, compress it for as small size as you can.

You're happy because your website is up and you get good business there. But what if your website hacked by people? Well, you can not sleep well and will take any available solutions to make it alive again. But you may not wish to be hacked again and ruin your internet business. In order to keep your website always in healthy state, you have to research a lot and tighten the security settings with your hosting provider. This article will guide about what to do after website hacked and how to secure your website in best practice.

Step1 – Restore most recent healthy backup

The very first task after hacking is to recover from your most recent backup. You can ask web hosting provider for quick assistance or upload your own if you backup often. In this way you can reduce the website down time as more as possible and your potential buyers will be kept on site. So basically, it's good habit to backup your website by schedule and in case you run into such problems you can always recover it in quick time.

Step2 – Find out hacking attempts

Once you have restored a clean backup, you can not just leave as it was. Instead, you must find out what have caused the problem so you can prevent further hacking. You can analyze the website logs and traffic logs to find out some doutable attempts. Since most hacks today are from sql injection, you will have to check your sql data base as well and prevent using some dangerous statements in coding. Generally speaking, use stored procedure is good solution to avoid most database hacking. You also need to talk with your hosting support for their suggestions since they have direct access to your server space.

Step3 – Remedy security holes

Ok so you have found the security holes on your website after a bit research. Now you need to fix all those problems. Check with your website developer or hosting provider about the fix and apply new security rules to avoid further hacking attempts.

There're definitely more to do because your website is your property. You never wish it to be hacked by somebody and bring problems to your life. Above solutions should help with your fix in most degrees. Just think about any other method to keep your site healthy.

Tips on how to secure your website in best practice

Security is the most important part when you're going to put up a website online. You have to do lots of work before/after your website get hosted. In order to help create a healthy website, we compiled the following 6 tips based editorial experience and practice.

Tip1. Get the latest software updates

Creating a website doesn't require programming or developer skills nowadays. You can pick up an existing cms software easily to start the journey. However, you must select a reliable and secure platform which is used by lots of people. Because such softwares have been applied lots of security fixes during live production. We highly suggest the leading platforms like wordpress, joomla or dotnetnuke based your personal skills. But please remember you should always keep your site with the latest updates because each update comes with new security fixes.

Tip2. Get a secure web hosting server

Now you have chosen the perfect platform to develop your website, but where to host it? We highly recommend to check out Arvixe(www.arvixe.com) for reliable and security hosting servers. The rich feature arvixe hosting plans are pretty affordable to help with your website success($2.8/mo after discount). Arvixe provides both windows and linux server plans to meet up with your different hosting requirements. Their servers are all newest DELL server production with up to date hot fixes to ensure the best security for your hosting service. Moreover, arvixe co-operate with lots of security software providers like 6scan(www.6scan.com) to help clean out virus attacks.

Tip3. Get strong login passwords and store in safe place

Always keep in mind it's good idea to set a strong and complex passwords to all your website/database. But that's not all yet. Most of the time, you will need to upload files via ftp clients. Some softwares like filezilla will remember your connection details. In case somebody else accessed your computer and launched this software they will logon to your server space directly without knowing your passwords. So it's highly recommended to clear out any connection after you have transfered files using FTP. The best practice is to remember your login details in mind so no other people can get it.

Tip4. Scan your website often for virus and malwares

Scan your files often to make sure your site is clean. You should scan both your local computer and server space because your local computer might be affected by virus and when you upload something to server, your site will be affected too. But since all your files are stored in server space, hosting providers will provide basic scans by schedule, but that's not enough. You might need third party service/tools to scan your site lively. Once you have found any virus/malware, clear out immediately.

Tip5. Join security communities

Join security communities and visit often. Especially when you're using existing cms software for website development, you should check out the official forum regularly to find out common security problems and learn from people on how to fix it. It's extremely helpful when you indeed run into such problem but not sure where to go, you can get suggestions quickly from the community.

Tip6. Keep Improving

Website security is not a one time fix. Once your site is going online you have to monitor it and improve the security setting as time flies. Because the security fix today will come with another one tomorrow, you always need to keep improving and ensure the best security.

Mobile devices are playing more and more important roles in our daily life. From comScore analytics, over 40% internet surfers logon websites via mobile devices. Creating a mobile friendly website is crucial to burst your online business nowadays. Recently, google published 10 rules to build your mobile website. Just follow up and rank your website high from mobile search engine!

NO.1 Simple and Fast

It requires your website be able to provide what user needed with fast response from limited size mobile screen. Google suggests:

• Provide user needs and functions in priority
• Do substraction and cut off as more contents as possible, leave core functions for user needs
• Concise words
• Compress pictures and speed up website loading

NO.2 Simplify Navigation

Provide clear contents structure and "Back"/"Forward" buttons for easy navigation. Google suggested 4 popular types navigations for mobile websites:

• Horizontal type(same as traditional website with top navigations, categories should be less than 7 based the screen size)
• Big button type(The most common and mostly used for mobile websites)
• List type
• Option list type

NO.3 Thumb Operation

Means your mobile website should be friendly for thumb operation. Because most mobile devices are designed with touch screens, a thumb friendly design will make your website easy to both people and search engine. Some tips below

• Bigger buttons for easier operation
• Bigger space to avoid wrong click(Leave more space between buttons so people can hit their desired buttons easily)
• Bigger clickable space(In case your button is small, you can give it a bigger clickable space so people can click on it even it's not hit in the center)
• User color and shadow to highlight buttons

NO.4 Be clear at a glance

It's also for user friendly consideration. You don't want users to navigate a lot in order to learn what's provided on your site. Some tips below

• Ensure your website height and width the same as mobile screens
• Obvious color difference for words and background
• Steady composing
• Confortable fonts

NO.5 Compatibility

It's the best to design your mobile site via HTML5 technologies for it's smart recognization for different devices. Just google it for guidance. Your mobile website must

• Be able to browsed on different mobile devices
• Get rid of flash, use html5 instead
• Be able to adjust based screen directions

NO.6 Easy Conversion

If you're running an ecommerce site, you must bring customer convenience and reduce any potential problems in purchasing your products. Time is gold, people do not want to waste lots of time on your website.

• Simplify your website registration/login process
• Reduce manual typing, use option forms and menus instead
• Focus on factors that help with conversion rate

NO.7 Local Optimization

The users' local information is most valuable on your website. You might consider the following on your website

• Recommendation based user geographical location
• Maps, routes, phone numbers based user locations

NO.8 Smooth Experience

If possible, try to keep the same website layouts on all platforms(either pc, table pc or mobile phones). The Apple is good to learn about.

NO.9 Smart redirection

Your website should be able to judge different mobile devices automatically and provide according contents. Users be able to redirect between desktop and mobile versions easily.

NO.10 Keep Optimizing

You should monitor your website performance and gain user feedbacks for further improvements. Mobile website is not a mobile App so it can be improved on the fly. You should make use of any available analyzing tools for better website presence.

You might find it hard to deal with lots of tech stuff for mobile website creation. If you would like to convert your desktop site to mobile version, we highly recommend to check out goMobi solution which is leading choice by lots of webmasters. You can get a powerful mobile website up and running in few minutes by simple guidance.

When your website grows up or your existing hosting provider can not serve you well any more, you have no choice but to transfer your data to another service. Website migration is a pain to many people because of the complicated configurations on new server space. Especially when you have to wait a long time for file downloading/uploading. But today we're going to guide you about how to move your website in quick time and avoid data loosing.

By tradtional methods, we need to download all files to local computer from old hosting service then upload everything to new server space. In case there's connection issue we always have to start over the process because we're not sure which file missed anywhere. If we have a large size website, we might need hours or even days to migrate over successfully. Thanks to the fast development for hosting service, we no longer need to deal with the boring task and waste our time for such transfer. We're going to introduce two best solutions.

NO.1 – SSH Wget File Transfer

Nowadays, more and more hosting providers support SSH connection to your hosting account. When it brings convenience for hosting management, we can also use the great file transfer facility and simplify our account migration process. Just a simple command and all files will be transfered to new server space by the most possible fast speed. Because the transfer is server to server, our local internet connection issue is avoided and you will see how amazing the transfer speed is! How to start SSH file transfer? Just look below.

First, you need login to your old account space and zip your website directory to your website root and make sure it's downloadable from your website such as http://yourwebsite.com/backup.zip. Now you need connect to your new server space via SSH client such as Putty. Once you're connected, send this command to terminal window "wget http://yourwebsite.com/backup.zip" then file transfer will be started. Just wait till the transfer completed. The waiting time will depend the actual file size that may take seconds to minutes but it's absolutely faster than FTP transfer.

When you use SSH file transfer solution, you must find a quality web hosting service who supports this protocol. For fast and stable SSH connection, we highly suggest check out Arvixe(www.arvixe.com) and Bluehost(www.bluehost.com) hosting plans. Their hosting come with SSH support by default as suggested by their service. If it's not enabled, just contact support for assistance and they will enable it for free. NOTE: SSH file transfer is only for linux hosting, it's not applicable for windows hosting service.

NO.2 – H-sphere File Downloading

There's a hosting control panel called H-sphere that comes with a bounch of great features for hosting management. It has simple navigation but powerful design for all hosting services. Especially when you like to migrate website from other space, H-sphere is probably your best choice for GUI operation. H-sphere comes with two file transfer protocols called "Wget" and "FTP". The Wget option is GUI version ssh service where you can download files from specific location directly. FTP option allows user to connect to any available ftp space and download files to your desired destination directory. Screenshots as below:

You can not really find better solution other than H-sphere control panel if you would like to simplify website migration process. It works with both windows and linux platforms so it's great choice if your website is developped under either technology. H-sphere is currently only supported by ixwebhosting service. They're great in providing cheap and rich feature hosting plans. Especially when you have high requirements for dedicated IPs, ixwebhosting be able to offer you up to 15 free IPs per hosting account.

Go to Ixwebhosting for plan details http://www.ixwebhosting.com

Website Migration Tips

It's very important to follow the correct migration process so as to reduce your website down time. In case it's the first time to deal with website transfer, please follow these steps:

• Backup your entire website folder and database if any
• Transfer all website data to new server space
• Test via temporary URL provided by new hosting provider to make sure everything works fine on new server
• Pick up a prefered time and change over domain DNS from registrar

When should you close old hosting service? It's not suggested cancel your old hositng service once your migration completed. You might need the old account access in case something not working properly from new server. If they learnt you're migrating away, they will not help with your new problems. So it's wise to let the old service alive for some time and close it when you really don't it anymore.

Should you use free website migration service from hosting provider? Many hosting providers now offer free website migration service in order to get more clients. However, we don't recommend to use this service because they might not completely understand your website structure and you have to deal with new problems. Instead, we highly suggest do it by yourself. In this way you can be familiar with the entire process and you won't seek for more help in case you need to migrate again in future.