My job as a Business Coach is not just about looking at your website and business, it’s also about encouragement and guidance. OK sometimes it’s also about a bit of a kick up the rear – or a even a hug for a struggling Osteopath.
Last week I was preparing for some 1:1 coaching with a fabulous and talented guy who I’ve known for ages and who wanted a spot of guidance and focus for expansion in the next few months.
When I’m working up to our virtual Skype meeting, I will often have the website open on one of my tabs – my boys tut and roll their eyes at how many I have open at once! I will pop in and out of the website looking at different pages – I might even make your website stats peak! All the time, I’m thinking things through and coming up with ideas and suggestions based on this and the answers to my Business Diagnostic questionnaire.
Then closer to the call I go through it all again and come up with about 5-10 suggestions for action, depending on the package purchased.
So in preparation for this particular meeting I popped into his website again and I noticed something strange. In the top left hand corner was not the Osteopathic Practice name but the sign of a cross and the words ‘Risen Theme’. Then rather than a nice headline about how fab Osteopathy was, there was a bold call to action to follow Jesus! At the bottom of each page was also an address in San Diago, America where instead you would expect to find the Practice address.
Well I was perplexed! It’s not my job to be judgmental but equally I do need to be giving suggestions and ideas about how to grow a business.
This was going to be rather delicate!
So we both hopped onto Skype and reconnected. I didn’t want to offend but equally I did want to enquire about the religion thing.
“Errr, so I’m a little intrigued by your website,” I began gently.
“Really?” he replied, surprised.
“Yes, I wasn’t expecting it to be both about Osteopathy and religion. Just wondering if that’s a good idea?”
It turned out that he had no idea what I was talking about. Quickly rushing to his home page, he was visibly shaken.
His website had obviously been hacked and his content changed. I advised him to immediately change his password to something complex.
Protect your website from hackers
Imagine!! What a shock that was and how glad I was not to have to go down the road of explaining why I felt that eagerly promoting religion on your business website was not necessarily a great idea!
So what’s to be done?
Here are three steps to preventing religious sects and other infidels from inveigling their way into your domain:
- Make your website password more complex and include letters, numbers and symbols
- Make sure you have a back up of your website on Dropbox or Backup Buddy
- Get the plug-in ‘iTheme Security’ and enable ‘Brute Force Attack’
Once your website is safe you can get back to doing what you do best – treating pain!
