Web Concepts

Finding yourself in the need of  new web site design?  Lunarpages, and their newest web site design partner Evolve Thought | Media Group want to give you one.  They are giving away a completely FREE custom web site design to establish businesses that apply and meet the following criteria.

1. Must be a Lunarpages.com customer with an existing hosting account
2. Must be in operation for at least 1 year
3. Must already have a website hosted! Thus making this a website upgrade re-design
4. Must be located in North America
5. One submission per company, if more than one is submitted than all will be ignored

This just one more reason why it always pays to host with Lunarpages.  You only have until March 15th, 2010 to apply – and all winning applicants will be notified via e-mail.

Evolve Thought | Media Group is one of the web’s best web design, advertising and marketing service providers out there today.  Teamed up with the power of Lunarpages web hosting, they are a pair that can not be beat.  Check out the Web Design Examples from Evolve Thought | Media Group to see some fantastic examples of their work.

Have I caught your interest yet?  If you wish to put your name in the running to get the free web site design, fill out the form here:

Enter the Evolve Thought | Media Group Contest for Free!

If you are in need of a new web site design, this is a great contest to take part in.  Many thanks to the fantastic folks at Evolve Thought | Media Group for putting it together for the Lunarpages customers.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

When it comes to marketing yourself online, making sure everybody knows of your standing among the social networking sites out there is always a positive.  if you are using WordPress to publish your web site, then this plugin will be perfect to quickly add fixed social buttons to your domain.

The Fixed Social Buttons plugin for WordPress, does exactly the job you would think it would do.  It allows you to display a fixed (meaning they scroll along with you on the web page) series of buttons to help you promote your site on other social network web sites out there. 

Once installed, here is how the options look:

Just pick and choose the icons you want and if you want them on the top of the web pages, the bottom of the web pages, to be displayed vertically or to be displayed horizontally. It is a great alternative, if you don’t have the time or experiance to set something like this up by hand in your WordPress layout.

You can pick up the Fixed Social Buttons plugin for WordPress from the WordPress plugins database.

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Original post by Mitch

Quality is a characteristic property that defines the nature of something.  More often than not, you hear various people tell you that quality is the key to having a successful web site.  What exactly does that mean though?  If you think that answer is as useful as kissing your sister, stay tuned.

Quality Advice About Web Site Quality

Lets say you climb the intrepid Mount Webmaster, get to the highest peak, and find the all-knowing web development guru.  To make things simpler, call the all-knowing web development guru Larry for short. You ask Larry, “What can I do to make my web site more successful”.  Larry then strokes his long grey beard, pontificates for a moment and then says, “The quality of your content is key”.

What type of self-help guru, motivational speaker trash is this?  That isn’t going to help me out – or will it?

Niche Content Always Does Best

Remember, your goal is to build a web site with plentiful and useful content.  The average person surfing the Web is doing so to find the answer to something.  You need to give that answer and be the source for more content like it.  If you are focusing on something nobody cares about, then you are wasting your time.  Keep your web site’s content focused on your niche, and keywords that relate back to that niche.

• Car web sites should write about motors, wheels, transmissions and the like.
• Car web sites should not write about Lindsay Lohan, Ashley Greene, and late night wars between Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno.

Avoid Inconsistent Web Site Content and Design

While on the topic of unrelated content, that makes a great pink flamingo race car driver of a good point.  Keep your web site’s content consistent.  Very few web sites can cover multiple topics well.  Even when you put content aside though, consistence still plays a major role.

• Are all your web pages in your web site using the same site navigation?
• Are you using the same basic layout, colors, and features on all the web pages?
• Are you leading your web page visitors to other sections of the web site they might enjoy?

You want your web site to give off the vibe of being clean, professional and easy to navigate through.  If you get feedback saying otherwise, try changing things around a little.

Always Analyze Your Past Pages for Performance

Also, find your web site content that works – and see if you can figure out why.  This is a really simple task to do, or a complicated one.  For example, if you have a page up that features 20 tips about Twitter, and a popular Twitter blog links back to you.  There is your cause and effect. Other times though, finding the reasons why your web site’s content is successful might not be that easy.  You might have a steady climb to the top, as far as site traffic goes – and the reasons for that could be anything from a web site redesign, a new feature you added to the web site, or a dozen other reasons.

Make a habit of reviewing your web site’s content, and always look for ways you can improve it.

Perhaps Larry was not so crazy after all, quality is important to a web  site’s success, as long as you know what quality means.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Want to give your WordPress powered web site a wooden look and feel?  I have always been a big fan of the wood themes, mainly because they remind me of the old office chambers you remember in the old movies.  Where the room is surrounded in book, you have a large oak desk in the middle of the room, with a large executive-looking chair.  There is just something very professional about adding a wood finish to your theme. 

Here are four of the best looking wood related themes I have found for WordPress.

Dark Wood

Ground Floor

TouchWood

Kanata

That is it for this theme collection.  Know of another great wood theme?  Want to let us know which one of these wood themes you think is the best?  Sound off in the comments and share with us your thoughts.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

WordPress is finally providing a blog text editor that they can be proud of.  As of the most recent release, I have switched from using a desktop client to write blog entries to the WordPress web site interface.  That isn’t to say it hasn’t been without problems.

One issue I saw was that the text and picture alignment (left, right, and center) was not working.   However, this is a very simple thing to fix, if you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty with some stylesheet work.

The problem is that the WordPress post and page editor uses its own CSS code to change how your page or post gets presented.  So if it is not in place already, copy this snipit of code into each of your WordPress themes to fix your alignment problems.

Here is the code you’ll want to copy and paste into your theme’s stylesheet:

img.centered, .aligncenter, div.aligncenter {display: block margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; }

img.alignright { padding: 4px; margin: 0 0 4px 5px; display: inline; }

img.alignleft { padding: 4px; margin: 0 5px 4px 0; display: inline; }

.alignright { float: right; }

.alignleft { float: left; }

Feel free to edit that as needed, to fit your own design preferences. Your theme is found at:

/wp-content/themes/nameoftheme/stylesheet.css

That should get you basically to the right spot.  Depending on the theme, stylesheet name might change. Also “nameofthetheme” should reflect the name of the WordPress theme you are using.

If you are having a hard time getting your images and content to align as you have specified in the built-in WordPress editor, this should do the trick.  Just remember to upload the changes, once you have put them in place.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Finding a red theme is never fun, because truth be told, there are not that many good looking red themes out there.  There are a lot of phpBB themes out there – however, finding free themes that are red is a difficult task, indeed.  I have searched the Web myself though, and I have returned with four of the greatest looking red phpBB skins in existence today.

Milky Way Red – Preview it – Download it

Sliced – Preview it – Download it

Reds – Preview it – Download it

RedSilver – Preview it – Download it

There you have it, some of the best looking red themes for the phpBB message board script.  Lunarpages comes ready to serve you in hosting a phpBB powered forum on just about every hosting plan we provide too.  Which one is your favorite?  Do you know of another red phpBB skin that is better?  Send in your comments and let us know what you think!

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

WordPress themes are a dime a dozen, however good WordPress themes are few and far between.  I am a pretty picky designer, so it takes a lot to impress me with a theme, especially when it is free.  Here are some of the most impressive free themes I’ve found out there for WordPress.

Statement – Demo it – Download it

Mainstream – Demo it – Download it

NewsOne – Demo it – Download it

Monotech – Demo it – Download it

Know of another free theme that is pretty impressive?  Feel free to drop in with your comments on blog.lunarpages.com and let us know how you dress your blog for success.

Related Tips and Tricks:

• Free Flash Template Designs from Lunarpages
• Free e-Commerce Theme for WordPress
• E-Commerce Hosting with Zen Cart

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Original post by Mitch

The free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software, Zen Cart is perfect for any e-commerce web site hosted at Lunarpages.  With the thoughts of shop owners, programmers, designers and more in mind, Zen Cart is one of the best third-party shopping cart scripts out there.

You can easily install Zen Cart one of three ways.  We give the option to install manually, through LPCP’s WebApps page or cPanel’s Fantastico page.  The process is simple, straight forward and to the point.

If you need to see example of Zen Cart powered web sites, you can check out Zen Cart’s showcase page.  OpenSourceCMS.com also has a hosted demo of the shopping cart script on it’s web site.

Here are a few more Zen Cart tutorials that should come in handy:

• How to Move Your Zen Cart Install to Lunarpages
• How to Reset the Admin Password
• How Can I Upgrade Zen Cart Manually?

You can find more how-to articles in our web hosting wiki.  The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

Related Tips and Tricks:

• SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages
• PHPlist Hosting with Lunarpages
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Lunarpages fully supports the lightweight and simple Vanilla forum script.  What is Vanilla?  It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web. 

While it is not supported via the cPanel’s Fantastico or LPCP’s WebApps manager, the script is simple enough for anybody to download, setup and install in minutes.  For more help on the install process, check out this quick guide I wrote up for the Lunarpages web hosting wiki.

Addons Galore – One of Vanilla’s big strengths is the fact that is supports a number of awesome addons to extend the script even further.  Via their addon page, you can check out a number of themes, plugins and applications available for your own Vanilla message board installation.

• Browse Through the Most Popular Addons for Vanilla!

Want to take the script out for a test drive?  Check out the demo features on OpenSourceCMS to take a look at both the front end and the back end of this fantastic forum script.

For more Vanilla support and help – be sure to check out:

• Vanilla Help, Tutorials and More on the Web Hosting Wiki

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!  

Related Tips and Tricks:

• Web Hosting Forums Get a New Design
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages
• WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Want to get a free flash design template with your next web hosting plan?  The team over at Flash Template Designs and Lunarpages have teamed up to deliver you an out of this world deal.

If you use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month NEW hosting plan with Lunarpages and get a $30 discount on your web hosting.  What type of template will you get?  You can browse around the Flash Template Design web site to get an idea of the type of free flash layouts you will have to choose from.  How do you get started?

• Simply click here to purchase your web hosting, use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month Lunarpages Hosting plan.
• After your account is active with Lunarpages for 30 days, email them (select the “info” category) and quote the domain name on the new account we are hosting for you.
• They will email you your download link for the template of your choice (Up to $60 value) for FREE!

This is by far one of the best web hosting deals you can get your hands on. 

Please Note: This promotion is only for NEW 12+ month Lunarpages web hosting plans and excludes Email, Domain and Starter Plans.

Related Tips and Tricks:

• Stopping Spam – Favorite Web Development Freebies (Part 3 of 5)
• Five FAQs to Help You Make Some Money!
• Free, Customizable Flash Image Viewer

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch