Which is Better: WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix?

Building Your Site: How to Choose the Best Website Platform

Establishing an online presence these days is paramount for businesses – your website serves as a virtual storefront, a platform for expression, and a gateway to the global community. However, navigating the plethora of website-building platforms can be daunting. Among the most popular choices are WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Each offers unique features and functionalities, but which one is the right fit for your needs? Let’s delve into the pros and cons of each to help you make an informed decision.

WordPress: Power and Flexibility

is WordPress better?

WordPress is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the website-building world, powering over 40% of all websites on the internet. Its open-source nature and extensive plugin ecosystem make it a favorite among developers and businesses alike. Here are some of the pros and cons of using WordPress:

Pros:

  1. Flexibility: WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility, allowing users to create virtually any type of website, from simple blogs to complex e-commerce platforms. Its vast library of themes and plugins enables customization to suit specific needs.  It is any developer’s dream, as it allows for 100% customizability in terms of both layout and function.
  2. Scalability: Whether you’re a small business looking to expand or a large enterprise with complex requirements, WordPress can scale alongside your growth. With its robust architecture, it can handle high traffic volumes and extensive content without compromising performance.
  3. SEO-Friendly: WordPress is inherently optimized for search engines, with clean code structure, customizable permalinks, and plugins like Yoast SEO that enhance on-page optimization. This makes it easier for your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
  4. Extensive (and often Free) Add-on Functionality: With millions of users worldwide, WordPress boasts a vibrant community of developers, designers, and enthusiasts who contribute themes, plugins, and support forums. This extensive support network ensures that help is always available when you need it, and there are thousands of plugins available that offer turnkey functions to boost the efficiency, maintenance and scope of your site’s potential.

Cons:

  1. Learning Curve: While WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility, mastering its intricacies can be challenging for beginners. Customizing themes, managing plugins, and troubleshooting technical issues may require a learning curve or professional assistance.
  2. Maintenance: As an open-source platform, WordPress requires regular maintenance to ensure security and performance. This includes updating themes, plugins, and the core software, as well as implementing security measures to protect against vulnerabilities.
  3. Hosting and Domain: Unlike all-in-one solutions like Squarespace and Wix, WordPress requires separate hosting and domain registration. While this offers greater control and flexibility, it also adds complexity and additional costs for users.

Note: We LOVE WordPress!!  Almost all of the websites in our Web Portfolio are build in WordPress.  Our clients love the ease of maintenance and updating. Take a look and let us know if you’d like to chat about building a new website.

Squarespace: Sleek Design with Simplicity

Squarespace has gained popularity for its intuitive interface, stunning templates, and all-in-one platform that includes hosting, domain registration, and content management. Here are some of the pros and cons of using Squarespace:

Pros:

  1. Beautiful Templates: Squarespace offers a selection of professionally designed templates that are visually stunning and mobile-responsive. These templates are fully customizable, allowing users to create a unique website without any coding knowledge.
  2. All-in-One Platform: Squarespace simplifies the website-building process by providing integrated hosting, domain registration, and content management tools. This eliminates the need for third-party services and reduces complexity for users.
  3. User-Friendly Interface: With its drag-and-drop editor and intuitive interface, Squarespace is incredibly user-friendly, making it ideal for beginners and non-technical users. Creating and editing content is a breeze, allowing users to focus on design and creativity.
  4. Customer Support: Squarespace offers dedicated customer support via live chat and email, ensuring that users receive assistance whenever they encounter issues or have questions. This responsive support is invaluable for users who may require guidance or troubleshooting.

Cons:

  1. Limited Customization: While Squarespace offers beautiful templates, customization options are somewhat limited compared to WordPress. Users may find themselves constrained by the platform’s design choices and unable to implement certain features or functionalities.
  2. Scalability: While Squarespace is suitable for small to medium-sized websites, it may not be the best option for large-scale or complex projects. Its simplicity and ease of use come at the cost of scalability, limiting growth potential for businesses with expanding needs.
  3. Subscription Fees: Squarespace operates on a subscription-based model, with monthly or annual fees for access to its platform. While the cost includes hosting and other services, it can add up over time, especially for users with multiple websites or advanced requirements.
  4. SEO Limitations: While Squarespace offers better SEO capabilities than Wix, it still severely limits the search engine optimization potential of your site.

Wix: DIY Website Building Made Easy

Wix is another popular website-building platform known for its drag-and-drop editor, extensive template library, and affordable pricing plans. Here are some of the pros and cons of using Wix:

Pros:

  1. Drag-and-Drop Editor: Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for users to create and customize their websites without any coding knowledge. This visual interface allows for quick and effortless design changes, empowering users to bring their vision to life.
  2. Extensive Template Library: Wix offers a vast selection of professionally designed templates across various industries and categories. These templates are fully customizable, allowing users to personalize their website’s look and feel to suit their brand or style.
  3. Affordable Pricing: Wix offers a range of pricing plans to suit different budgets and needs, including free options with limited features. This affordability makes it accessible to individuals and small businesses looking to establish an online presence without breaking the bank.
  4. App Market: Wix features an extensive App Market with a wide range of third-party apps and integrations that add functionality to your website. From e-commerce tools to marketing solutions, these apps allow users to enhance their websites with additional features and capabilities.

Cons:

  1. Limited Flexibility: While Wix’s drag-and-drop editor is easy to use, it can be limiting in terms of flexibility and customization compared to WordPress. Users may find themselves restricted by the platform’s design constraints and unable to implement advanced features or functionalities.
  2. SEO Limitations: While Wix has made improvements to its SEO capabilities in recent years, it still lags behind platforms like WordPress in terms of search engine optimization. Users may encounter limitations in optimizing their website for visibility in search engine results.
  3. Platform Lock-In: Unlike WordPress, which allows users to migrate their website to different hosting providers, Wix operates on a closed platform. This means that users are locked into the Wix ecosystem and cannot easily transfer their website to another platform if they decide to switch in the future.

Choosing the right website-building platform depends on your specific needs, preferences, and technical expertise. WordPress offers unmatched flexibility and scalability but requires ongoing maintenance. Squarespace provides sleek design and simplicity but may be limiting for some. Wix offers DIY website building made easy but comes with limitations in flexibility and SEO. Ultimately, weigh the pros and cons of each platform carefully to make a decision that aligns with your goals and resources.

Contact us to chat about your web goals and see how BluErth can help you build a beautiful and functional website.

The Power of Aesthetics: How Good Design Elevates Business Website Success

In the online realm, where attention spans are fleeting and first impressions are crucial, the design of a business website plays a pivotal role in shaping its success. Beyond mere aesthetics, good design encompasses usability, functionality, and brand identity, influencing user perception, engagement, and ultimately, conversion rates. Investing in thoughtful design is a strategic imperative for businesses aiming to thrive in the competitive online landscape.

BluErth has over 20 years designing and building successful websites.  Check out our recent web design portfolio!

good web design

Capturing Attention and Creating Engagement

In the vast expanse of the internet, where countless websites vie for attention, capturing the fleeting interest of users is paramount. Good design serves as a powerful tool for grabbing attention and creating engagement from the moment a user lands on a website. Visually appealing layouts, striking imagery, and intuitive navigation draw users in, encouraging them to explore further and delve deeper into the content.

Fostering Positive User Experience

User experience (UX) lies at the heart of good design, encompassing the ease of navigation, clarity of information, and overall satisfaction derived from interacting with a website. A well-designed website anticipates the needs and preferences of users, guiding them seamlessly through the browsing journey and minimizing friction at every touchpoint. From intuitive navigation menus to responsive design that adapts seamlessly to different devices, every aspect of UX design contributes to a positive user experience, fostering trust and loyalty among visitors.

Enhancing Brand Identity and Perception

A business website serves as a digital storefront, representing the brand to the online world. Good design plays a pivotal role in shaping brand identity and perception, conveying the essence of the brand’s personality, values, and positioning. Through cohesive visual elements such as color schemes, typography, and imagery, a well-designed website reinforces brand consistency and authenticity, leaving a lasting impression on visitors and strengthening brand recall.

Building Credibility and Trust

In an era rife with online scams and dubious websites, establishing credibility and trust is paramount for businesses seeking to attract and retain customers. Good design instills confidence in visitors, signaling professionalism, reliability, and attention to detail. A clean, well-organized layout, accompanied by high-quality imagery and polished typography, conveys professionalism and competence, reassuring users that they are dealing with a reputable business worthy of their trust.

Optimizing Conversion Rates

At the end of the day, the ultimate measure of a business website’s success lies in its ability to convert visitors into customers or leads. Good design plays a pivotal role in optimizing conversion rates by guiding users through the conversion funnel and nudging them towards desired actions. Whether it’s a clear call-to-action (CTA) button strategically placed within the layout or persuasive visual cues that draw attention to key offerings, every design element is meticulously crafted to drive conversions and maximize ROI.

Adapting to Evolving Trends and Technologies

In the fast-paced world of web design, staying ahead of the curve is essential for maintaining relevance and competitive edge. Good design goes beyond mere aesthetics; it embraces innovation and adapts to evolving trends and technologies to ensure that a website remains fresh, modern, and user-friendly. From responsive design that caters to mobile users to immersive multimedia experiences that captivate audiences, embracing cutting-edge design trends allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition and resonate with today’s digitally savvy consumers.

In an increasingly digital world where online presence is synonymous with business success, the importance of good design cannot be overstated. From capturing attention and fostering engagement to enhancing brand identity and driving conversions, every aspect of a business website’s design plays a pivotal role in shaping its success. By investing in thoughtful design that prioritizes user experience, aesthetics, and functionality, businesses can create immersive digital experiences that resonate with audiences, foster trust and loyalty, and ultimately, drive measurable results. In the competitive landscape of the digital marketplace, good design isn’t just a luxury; it’s a strategic imperative for businesses aiming to thrive and succeed in the online realm.

Contact us to get a free consult and let us show you how we can improve your traffic and ranking and sales with a better website design!

5 Effective Ways to Boost Website Traffic Organically (without paying for ads)

Attracting visitors to your website without relying on paid ads has become both an art and a science. While paid advertising can undoubtedly drive traffic, mastering organic methods not only saves on costs but also fosters sustainable growth and long-term success. Whether you’re a seasoned web admin or a newcomer to the field, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge and strategies needed to boost your website’s traffic organically.

Understanding Organic Traffic

Organic traffic refers to visitors who land on your website through unpaid channels, primarily search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Unlike paid traffic, which relies on advertising campaigns, organic traffic relies on various optimization techniques to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract users naturally. Mastering organic traffic involves optimizing your website for search engines, creating high-quality content, and leveraging other channels like social media and email marketing.

1. SEO: The Foundation of Organic Traffic

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) lies at the core of any successful organic traffic strategy. By optimizing your website’s structure, content, and backlink profile, you can improve its visibility in search engine results and attract more visitors. Here’s how to get started:

  • Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords and phrases that your target audience is searching for. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to discover high-volume keywords with low competition.
  • On-Page Optimization: Optimize your website’s meta titles, meta descriptions, headings, and content to include your target keywords naturally. Ensure that your website’s URL structure is clean and descriptive.
  • Consistent, Quality Content Creation: Create valuable, informative, and engaging content that addresses the needs and interests of your audience. Publish blog posts, articles, guides, and videos that demonstrate your expertise and provide solutions to common problems in your niche.  Publish regular blog posts on your site. Creating new text content on a REGULAR BASIS is the #1 thing that you can do to grow the footprint of your site and get indexed in search results for keywords and search phrases related to you. It may take a while to see a difference in your search results rankings and incoming traffic, but if you can force yourself to publish at least 2 blogs posts a month, then after several months you’re going to start climbing up to the top of search results and get more people looking at your site.
  • Technical & Professional SEO: Improve your website’s technical aspects, such as site speed, code structure, mobile-friendliness, and ease of use. Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test to identify and fix any issues that may hinder your site’s performance. Search engines now prioritize websites that are engaging in professional SEO work. As licensed pros, we have special access to search engines where we can see the algorithm directly, can request custom display preferences in search results, and we get a “Disney Fast Pass” to the front of the line for indexing, shortening the indexing cycle to 42 days and guaranteeing that your ENTIRE site is indexed, not just a few pages here and there when Google accidentally ‘trips’ over it as it crawls the web. Learn more about our SEO services here.
  • Backlink Building: Earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry. Guest blogging, outreach campaigns, and content collaborations are effective ways to acquire backlinks naturally.

2. Content Marketing: Creating Value-Driven Content

Content is the cornerstone of any successful organic traffic strategy. By producing high-quality, valuable content that resonates with your target audience, you can attract visitors, establish authority, and drive engagement. Here are some content marketing strategies to implement:

  • Content Planning: Develop a content calendar outlining topics, formats, and publishing schedules. Conduct research to identify popular trends, questions, and topics within your industry.
  • Diversified Content Types: Experiment with different content formats, including blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and interactive quizzes. Cater to different learning preferences and consumption habits.
  • Evergreen Content: Create evergreen content that remains relevant and valuable over time. Evergreen articles, guides, and tutorials can continue to attract traffic and generate leads long after they’re published.
  • Optimized Multimedia: Optimize multimedia content, such as images and videos, for search engines by including descriptive filenames, alt text, and captions. This improves accessibility and enhances your content’s discoverability.
  • User-Generated Content: Encourage user-generated content, such as reviews, testimonials, and user-generated videos. User-generated content not only engages your audience but also adds authenticity and social proof to your brand.

3. Social Media Engagement: Building a Community

Social media platforms offer a powerful channel for driving organic traffic, building brand awareness, and engaging with your audience. Here’s how to leverage social media effectively:

  • Platform Selection: Identify the social media platforms where your target audience is most active. Focus your efforts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok, depending on your niche and demographic.
  • Content Sharing: Share your website’s content on social media channels regularly. Tailor your messaging and content formats to suit each platform’s audience and guidelines.
  • Engagement and Interaction: Actively engage with your audience by responding to comments, messages, and mentions. Foster conversations, ask questions, and encourage user-generated content to boost engagement.
  • Community Building: Create and nurture communities around your brand or niche. Establish dedicated groups, forums, or online communities where users can connect, share ideas, and seek advice.
  • Influencer Partnerships: Collaborate with influencers and thought leaders in your industry to reach new audiences and amplify your message. Identify influencers whose values align with your brand and whose followers match your target demographic.

4. Email Marketing: Nurturing Relationships

Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for nurturing relationships, driving traffic, and converting leads into customers. Here’s how to leverage email marketing for organic traffic growth:

  • Build an Email List: Encourage website visitors to subscribe to your email list by offering incentives such as exclusive content, discounts, or free resources. Use opt-in forms, pop-ups, and lead magnets to capture email addresses.
  • Personalized Campaigns: Segment your email list based on user preferences, behaviors, and demographics. Deliver personalized and relevant content to each segment to maximize engagement and conversions.
  • Automation and Drip Campaigns: Set up automated email sequences, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and drip campaigns, to nurture leads and guide them through the customer journey.
  • Content Promotion: Use email newsletters to promote your website’s content, products, and offers. Include compelling CTAs and links to drive traffic back to your site.
  • A/B Testing: Continuously test and optimize your email campaigns for maximum effectiveness. Experiment with different subject lines, email designs, send times, and CTAs to improve open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.

5. Community Engagement: Participating in Online Communities

Engaging with online communities, forums, and discussion groups relevant to your niche can help you establish authority, build relationships, and drive traffic to your website. Here’s how to participate effectively:

  • Identify Relevant Communities: Find online communities, forums, and discussion groups where your target audience congregates. Platforms like Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow, and niche-specific forums are excellent places to start.
  • Provide Value: Participate in discussions, answer questions, and provide valuable insights without being overly promotional. Establish yourself as a trusted expert and resource within the community.
  • Share Your Content Sparingly: Share your website’s content sparingly and only when it’s highly relevant and valuable to the community. Focus on contributing to discussions and adding value rather than self-promotion.
  • Engage Authentically: Be authentic, transparent, and respectful in your interactions with community members. Avoid spammy or overly promotional behavior, as it can damage your reputation and credibility.
  • Monitor and Analyze: Monitor discussions, feedback, and trends within online communities to identify opportunities, gather insights, and refine your content and marketing strategies.

That’s a Wrap

Mastering organic traffic requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses SEO, content marketing, social media engagement, email marketing, and community participation. By implementing these strategies and continuously refining your approach based on data and feedback, you can attract more visitors to your website, build meaningful relationships with your audience, and achieve sustainable growth over time.

Can you get better SEO with WordPress or Shopify?

Recent years have seen the rise of many hosted website and ecommerce solutions such as Wix, Square Space and Shopify.  These can be good solutions for many small businesses, but its important to know certain things about how SEO works within these platforms before making your decision about which platform is best for your website.

As an SEO Strategist and WordPress developer, one question I get often is, “Is SEO work as effective in a Shopify site as it is in a WordPress site?”

That’s a great question.  The answer starts with a “Yes, but…”

We can do very good SEO work on Shopify, Wix and Square Space sites, however we’ve seen that results typically take longer to come to fruition, and indexing is not as fluid or comprehensive with these sites as it is with WordPress.  WordPress will nearly always yield better results from SEO work, for a few reasons.

1. All hosted application sites are canned and therefore limit control of the website admin over the website environment.

When you sign up to host your site with Shopify, you are given a bit of website space under the Shopify.com domain, in what is called a subdomain.  For example, your site’s URL would technically be “mysite.shopify.com”.  Domain masking can be applied so that “mysite.com” gets forwarded to “mysite.shopify.com”,  but really your site and its entire body of content is under the control of the parent domain.  Sites like Shopify and Wix are actually applications, whereas WordPress is a script.  That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s actually a very important distinction.  Running your site through an application means that your control over many elements are very much limited, including your control over the SEO meta in your site.

2. WordPress performs better because it is more customizeable.

One of the hallmarks of WordPress and certainly one of the reasons it is the most widely-used web platform is that it is so customizable, not only in terms of how you can build a website, but also how much SEO meta can be implemented.  Shopify will only allow you to have 20 keyword phrases at any given time.  You might be able to enter more than that into the site pages via the admin, however the system will filter those keywords so that only 20 are readable by engines at any given time.  This limits you to 20 keyword phrases that can be indexed for you site.  Compare that to an unlimited number of keywords that WordPress will allow, and that makes a huge difference, especially for larger sites with lots of pages and posts.

3. Shopify limits your control and access

Shopify, Wix and SQuare Space (and others like it) limit direct access to robots.txt, and deny XML control.  Shopify will also limit the number of words allowed in each keyword phrase to 2.  This is a big deal – its the difference between ranking for “Car Wash Denver” and just “Car Wash”, which can make all the difference if you are trying to attract customers locally in Denver.  This specific example also means that instead of competing with only a small handful of other car wash sites in Denver, you are now competing with ALL care wash sites in the world.

While limiting control and access to parts of the site does prevent site owners from accidentally making a potentially wrong move in their own sites, it also means that an SEO expert cannot come in and customize settings in these areas to tailor how search engines view your site or how Google can index your content.  One of the biggest benefits of working in WordPress is that you are afforded access to every file and feed in your site.

So – if your site is already built on Shopify, Wix, Square Space, or another application site with a monthly fee, we definitely can do effective SEO campaigns in conjunction with the limitations of these platforms.  We just want you to be aware that results will most likely take longer to appear in your reporting.  SEO is a long game anyways, so what’s a few more weeks?

Learn about our SEO Products & Services!

If you’d like to discuss how BluErth can implement an effective SEO strategy in your site, please contact us!

Is WordPress a Safe Platform for my Website?

WordPress is the world’s most-used content management software for small and medium sized websites, powering more than 1 in every 4 websites total. Because it is such a heavily used software platform, when a vulnerability is discovered, it means that more site owners are put at risk.  As a result, many people believe that WordPress is an insecure platform, but this is just not true.

It may be true that WordPress is subject to more attacks simply because it is used far more than any other platform, but this doesn’t mean that WordPress is less secure. On the contrary, the WordPress development team collectively works day in and day out to find and patch any possible security vulnerabilities. No other website platform comes close to matching the enormous numbers behind WordPress, which means that almost as soon as a potential threat or vulnerability is identified, members of the development community create and disseminate a fix or a patch almost immediately.

The 2 Most Common Hacking Vulnerabilities

The overwhelming majority (almost 80%) of all WordPress hacking incidents are caused by only two things: (1) old or outdated software, and (2) weak username/password combos. It really comes down to poor maintenance or user error, not an inherent flaw in the software itself.

The Solution

Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy for users to address these issues with its built-in alerts, that let you know the moment an update or patch is available, and gives you the convenience of simply clicking a button within your dashboard to update.

We also strongly recommend using the plugin Wordfence, which has a free and a Pro version, and is well-maintained by its developers.

Maintaining the security of your site can seem endlessly complicated, but with dedicated IP, a secure username and password, and the most up-to-date plugin and core software, you can rest easy knowing that your site is actually very well protected.

Maintaining Your WordPress Website

A website is like an organism – it grows, it changes, and it evolves over time, a lot like your company.  As technology expands and improves throughout the internet, so must your website to accommodate those improvements and stay compatible.  Falling behind the technology curve can mean exponential losses in readership or site traffic.  With the current rate of tech evolution, falling behind even 1 year could mean the difference between 5,000 views per month and 5 views per month.

One good example of this is responsive layouts.  In 2014, Google began penalizing page ranks for any website that was not fully responsive on all devices.  For many websites that continued to keep their non-responsive layouts, traffic fell almost to zero.

At this point in time and in the near future, there are really only two major guidelines for ongoing maintenance to ensure that your site is staying up to date with technology and remains accessible to all readers.  Completing these updates a minimum of twice per year is the recommended best practice:

  1. Always complete a full site and database backup before updating the WordPress core software and any Ecommerce software plugins.  The core software update releases generally contain security updates and are always recommended.  Making a backup first guarantees that if something breaks during the update, you can restore the backup and won’t experience any down time.
  2. Keep your plugins and themes updated at all times to avoid a security breech. Over 90% of ALL instances of WordPress hacking is due to out-of-date plugins or old themes.  If you are not using a theme or plugin, it should be deleted entirely.

Choosing Plugins Wisely: Protect your WordPress site against hacking through plugins

1. Download plugins only from reputable sources. For free plugins, this means WordPress.org only! Since anyone can create a WordPress plugin, hackers can exploit this vulnerability to hide their own nefarious plugin. The WordPress.org plugin library will only offer plugins that are known to be safe.  Other software sources that offer paid plugins such as CodeCanyon.com are generally safe.  Be sure that the plugin you are purchasing has reviews or ratings.
2. Ensure all your plugins are up to date. Any time you see the option to update your software, do it!  New version releases often contain security fixes that will protect you from malware, and old, outdated plugins can become gateways for hackers to gain access to your website.
3. Remove any unused plugins.  Unused plugins tend to take up space on your server, slow down your site, and become vulnerable to hacking if they become out of date.
4. Check plugin performance.  We recommend the plugin P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) that scans your current plugins to determine if any of them are causing system-wide issues such as bandwidth hogging, slowing your site or clashing with system files.  Keeping your site running smoothly has a great impact on your site’s SEO.
Keep these basic rules of thumb in mind while maintaining your website and you should have a healthy site!

Keeping your WordPress site secure

WordPress has revolutionized the internet and provided easy-to-use access to millions of users with limited development capabilities.  While it is perhaps one of the most useful tools out there, it is also one of the most vulnerable.  WordPress works with a coding language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor which allows for scripts to be integrated into the site’s pages and executed on the server to generate HTML content.  This means the code is more concise and easier for developers to work with, and allows for that neat Dashboard Control Panel on which you can control every aspect of your site content.  There are so many pros to this type of site software, and one really big caveat: if your developer can manipulate the PHP to generate a beautiful site for you, a hacker can manipulate the PHP to redirect or even destroy your site.

Continue reading “Keeping your WordPress site secure”

Brute Force Attacks

We are currently monitoring the largest distributed brute force attack on WordPress installations that we’ve seen to date.

A brute force attack is when an attacker tries many times to guess your username password combination by repeatedly attempting to login to your admin panel. A distributed brute force attack is when an attacker uses a large number of machines spread around the internet to do this in order to circumvent any blocking mechanisms you have in place.

BluErth recommends that until this passes you monitor your WordPress websites closely for unusual activity including logins, account creation or changes to the website.  If you have not already done so, please install and configure the Better WP Security plugin to help prevent brute force attacks, and consider updating your admin password to something more secure if it is not already (we recommend at LEAST 10 characters, one uppercase letter, one number, and one symbol).

Link to: Better WP Security plugin