Web Design & SEO For Small Businesses

The .htaccess files (Hypertext Access file) is a very powerful configuration tool on Apache web server. The Apache web server has a number of configuration options that are available to the server administrator. The .htaccess is a simple ASCII text file placed in your website root directory. You can create and edit an .htaccess file using a text editor like notepad.

Here in this blog post I have come up with useful 16 tips and hacks to configure your web server.
As a configuration file .htaccess if a very powerful and a slight syntax error can result in a severe malfunction of your server. So to avoid that always try to keep a backup copies of all your files from the server before working with the .htaccess file.

1. Creating a custom error page with .htaccess on a linux apache is a very simple task. Using you a text editor like notepad you create an .htaccess files. Custom error pages give your website an professional look and catch those visitors who reach your website following a back link.

ErrorDocument 401 /error/401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /error/403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /error/404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /error/500.php

2. How to set the timezone on your server

SetEnv TZ America/Houston

3. Block IPs Using htaccess
Sometime you need to block certain IPs from accessing your entire site or directory. Its pretty simple task. All you have to do is inside the .htaccess file is put the following code.

allow from all
deny from 145.186.14.122
deny from 124.15

If you use the whole IP or a part of the IP to block and add the new ones in a new line.
When someone trying to access your site from the banned ip they will get a 403 error access forbidden message.

4. SEO Friendly 301 permanent redirects for bad/old links and moved links

Redirect 301 /d/file.html http://www.htaccesselite.com/r/file.html

5. Set the Email Address for the Server Administrator - Using this code you can specifying the default email address for the server administrator.

ServerSignature EMail
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN default@domain.com

6. Hotlinking protection with .htaccess is very important because anyone can hot link to your images and eat up all your bandwith of your server. The following code will help you to prevent that.

Options +FollowSymlinks
# Protect Hotlinking
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?domainname.com/ [nc]
RewriteRule .*.(gif|jpg|png)$ http://domainname.com/img/hotlink_f_o.png [nc]

7. Block all requests from user agent – by creating a perfect .htaccess ban list, you can block all of unwanted user agents that will keep your server load down. Also Check out this interesting thread on webmaster world about the  228 user agents ban list.

## .htaccess Code :: BEGIN
## Block Bad Bots by user-Agent
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^FrontPage [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Java.* [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Microsoft.URL [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^MSFrontPage [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Offline.Explorer [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^[Ww]eb[Bb]andit [NC,OR]
SetEnvIfNoCase user-Agent ^Zeus [NC]
<Limit GET POST HEAD>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot
</Limit>
## .htaccess Code :: END

8. Redirect everyone to different site except few IP -If you want to redirect all the visitors to a different IP. Also give access to certain  few IPs. You can use the code below

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.youdomain.com
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 124.34.48.165
Allow from 102.54.68.123

9. Don’t want to display download request – Usually when you try to download something from a web server you get a request asking whether you want to save the file or open it.
To avoid that you can use the below code on your .htaccess file.

AddType application/octet-stream .pdf
AddType application/octet-stream .zip
AddType application/octet-stream .mov

10. Change the file type – Make any file be a certain kind of file type Makes image.jpg, index.html, default.cgi all act as php

<Files test>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

11. Block access to your .htaccess file – By adding he following code to your htaccess file will prevent attempts to access your htaccess file. This extra layer of security protects your htaccess file by displaying a 403 error message on the browser.

# secure htaccess file
<Files .htaccess>
 order allow,deny
 deny from all
</Files>

12. Protect access to certain specific file on your server - this can be done by adding the below mentioned code. For example you want to block with the file name default.jpg This will prevent the viewing of this file.

# prevent access of a certain file
<files default.jpg>
 order allow,deny
 deny from all
</files>

13. Prevent access to unauthorized browsing – Protecting specific directory browsing can be done by intructing the server to serve a Forbidden and Authorization required message while anyone requests to view that particular directory. Usually if you site doesn’t have a default index page any files within that directory is accessible to the visitors. To avoid that use the following code in the .htaccess file.

# disable directory browsing
Options All -Indexes

14. Setting the default page – You can set the default page of a directory to any page you like. For example in this code the default page is set as about.html instead of index.html

# serve alternate default index page
DirectoryIndex about.html

15. Password protect your directories and files - You can create authentication for certain files and directories from being access. The code has examples of both password protection for a single file and password protection for a entire directory.

# to protect a file
<Files secure.php>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Prompt”
AuthUserFile /home/path/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
</Files>

# password-protect a directory
resides
AuthType basic
AuthName “This directory is protected”
AuthUserFile /home/path/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user

16. Redirect an old domain to a new domain – Using htaccess file you can redirect a old domain name to a new domain by adding the following code into the htaccess file. Basically what it does is it will remap the old domain to the new one.

# redirect from old domain to new domain
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

As htaccess files are very powerful, even a slightest syntax error can cause sever malfunction of your server. So it is crucial to take the backup copies of everything before you try the hacks and tricks on your hypertext access files. Post your thoughts with a comment.

In my previous post A landing page guide to Affiliate Marketers, I promised to get into more details about increasing landing page conversion for affiliate marketers. As I outlined in my previous post some of the strategies for landing page optimization. Today in this post I am going to say about the main elements which increase you’re landing page conversion by more than 15%-300% if you test it.

Improving your website conversion is continues process to generate better results from your website visitors. Optimizing your landing page also increases your sales and has a great ROI for each penny spend.

Below are some of the main elements which can increase conversion on the landing page after testing it in different ways according to your requirements.

1) Heading of the page: – Each landing page should be structured with a Heading which is very important since it is the first element each visitors see it, So It should be catch and draw the attention of the visitors The heading should be most relevant to the keyword search by the visitors If it is irrelevant the visitor might leave soon and your bounce rate increases which also affects your Quality Score with Google Adwords programs if you are using that as your PPC marketing effort.

2) Call to Action: – The location of the Call to Action makes a big difference on the landing page if you put up your call to action on the page where it is not prominent then it will reduce your conversion of the landing page, because it doesn’t stand out. Don’t confuse the visitors with too many call to action, I would advice to have more than 2 call to action on a landing age to avoid confusion, it can be a phone or a simple RFQ (lead) form. Use a lot of White space around your call to action to offset or highlight the call to action. You call to action can be an image or text but all it need to be prominent in the eyes of the visitor.

3) Copy of the Landing page: – Content is the key for any sales copy including for your landing page. The content of the landing page should have the ability to transforms words into a sale or a lead conversion. Let your copy of the landing page be more detailed in simple word which a layman can understand, with good amount of whitespace and bulleted point to highlight the benefits and features of your product and services. Copyblogger has a nice blog post about 10 tips for writing a ultimate landing page.

4) Graphics impact on landing pages:- Images create a big impact on your landing page conversion rate. The best method is to portrait an image which is relevant to your products or service offers that you re giving to your customers instead of using non-relevant graphics. Also make it a point to add a caption to your images these powerful words under the images can tempt the visitor to click on the image so make sure that the images are clickable and take to the conversion area such as a signup page or what ever action then visitors want to do for you.

5) Optimize your buttons :- Color and the size of the button matters in your conversion rate, Usually Red or Green convert better with a call to action on the button like click here, download or signup these text on the button is key for a better conversion. Also the location of the button is a very important issue because if the buttons are placed where it is not able to notice you are not going to get any click on that button. The size the bigger the better since it stand outs and you are asking the visitors to do some strong action on the landing page where chances are more than 60 % click on those big buttons. Urgency is what makes people to take action on the page so focus on the call to action on the button for high conversion rate.

6) Trustworthy testimonials and security: – People like to believe what other people say about the products and services before they buy. This part of winning of the visitors trust can be achieved by add testimonial on the page and try to make it a trustworthy one which people believe that is a genuine and win your trust and can increase your conversion overdoing the testimonials can hurt as well. Testimonials don’t need to be highlight or stand out; all you need to do is that it is visible on page so that before they do some action they are happy and satisfied that they are buying from a trusted place. Equally important is the privacy policy of your website even though not all visitors won’t read the privacy policy page but still it is good, since some really targeted visitors might go through your privacy policy which should at the footer which is the standard location and every visitor knows about it where it would be located.

7) Pricing:- What most of the affiliate marketers ignore about educating the visitor about the price of the products other related expense occur if they are proceeding with the checkout. Don’t try to hide the price with small fonts and make the visitor to buy the product or service. Make it clear to the visitor on the main landing page that how much it cost and if any additional costs like sales tax or shipping charges. This not only helps you to win the confidence of the visitor as well as increase conversion since the price are prominent next to the call to action either the product image or signup button.

Study shows that most of the online sales are lost on a site due to the lack of implementing the critical element that builds value and trust with your website visitors.