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Set up a passwords file

Words protect your site. Don’t forget them!

This is really important. Do not skip this step. Somewhere you need to record all the critical access information (passwords and usernames) for the different parts of your website. I had a friend who skipped this step. I told him over and over that his little piece of note paper would get lost and it did! You’re going to have a few passwords in the process of setting up your site, here’s a few of them:

• Hosting company account (ie, WPengine)
• Domain name provider account (ie GoDaddy)
• Your user name and password for your website itself
• Theme site account (ie Themeforest)

The way I keep track of this info is by having a Google Docs page setup. This allows me to access it from anywhere by logging into my Google account. If you don’t feel comfortable having this information online you could have a simple text document on your computer. What ever you do, don’t publish this information openly online. For example, don’t create a page on your site which you only the know the URL of. That’s just plain stupid because not only does it put your passwords in a publicly viewable area, it links them with the site the passwords relate to.

Action

1. Create a text document for passwords. I use Google Docs.
2. Record all passwords need to maintain the site

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How to create a strong password

There are password generators you can use like this one by PC Tools.  It will generate a combination of characters like this: t6ca3uguspuju7e3uphuqeb6apamamusteDr. The only problem is that it’s completely unreadable by humans. Which means the process of accessing your site generally means opening your text file and then copying and pasting the password. A little bit painful, but really important and the good news is that browsers will save these passwords for you so you don’t have to go through this process every time. There is however an easier and supposedly more secure approach to passwords. What you do is choose three words that you’ll remember, ie Black cat hat. By rearranging those three key words you have multiple passwords like blackcathat, hatcatblack, blackhatcat, cathatcat. You may also want to add the year when you started using the service your signing up for in there as well, ie blackcathat2012. And if the signup process needs you to add a special character you add a ! to the end, ie, blackcathat2012! I should note that i’m not a security expert, these are just a couple password ideas i’ve picked up off the web.

Action

1. Create a strong password using a tool like this one OR
2. Choose three key words that you’ll remember and rearrange them for different sites. Add the year and ! for added difficulty. For example john cat red 2010! catredjohn2010!

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