Web Concepts

Installing plugins within WordPress itself, rather than downloading them and re-uploading them to your hosting space manually has been around for some time now.  However, I don’t think many people have discovered this great feature that WordPress has to offer.  Let me guide you through installing a plugin using WordPress on your blog hosted here at Lunarpages.

Step one would be to login to your WordPress powered blog’s administrator section, usually located at:

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/

Next, you want to click on the Plugins menu in the sidebar.  Once you are on the Manage Plugins page, check in the sidebar under Plugins for a link that says, “Add New”.  Click that link.

This will take you to the Install Plugins web page.  YOu have several options to choose from here.  The two most noticeable ones are the search box and the popular tags.  Here you can find the plugin you are looking for. 

Now, just search for the plugin type you need.  I typed in, “images” and got this screen returned to me:

There you have plenty of image related plugins to choose from.  Now if you select featured, popular, newest or recently updated – you will be taken to another plugin list that shows that type of plugin.  To install a plugin, just hit the, “Install” link under the action column that lines up with that specific plugin. 

A new window will pop up giving you a description of the plugin, and the ability to install that plugin by hitting the button labeled, “Install Now”.  No need for FTP clients, downloading and re-uploading.  WordPress takes care of it all.  When your done installing, you can then turn around and activate, tweak and configure the plugin you have just installed.

Need Blog Hosting?  Come check out the Lunarpages Basic Hosting Plan, the home of many WordPress powered blogs from around the Web!

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

Original post by Mitch

Lunarpages wants to help you develop a better digital marketing strategy for your online business or web site, today. With the Lunarpages Online Marketing Services, developed in partnership with digital advertising agency LocalDirective you will soon be on the road to web site success.

All you do is pick the one of the three tiers of service you need, and best serves your budget.  These new marketing add-on services will help with everything from search engine marketing, social media, e-mail marketing, search engine optimization and more.  We are also offering this new service to Lunarpages clients for a fraction of the price that the other guys charge.

Introductory Online Marketing Package = Only $149

Get started with the development of your online presence with this introductory package, which provides:

• Facebook &amp MySpace Coupons Redemption
• Search Engine Optimization
  • A customized Search Engine Ranking Report
  • Custom Meta Data (title, description &amp keywords)
  • A customized Keyword Density report
• Search Engine Marketing Guide
• Business Directory Listings

Basic Online Marketing Package = Only $389

Ratchet your online presence up to a higher level with our basic package, which provides:

• Google, Yahoo or Bing: $50 Pay-Per-Click Campaign
• Facebook & MySpace Coupons Redemption
• Search Engine Marketing Guide
• Business Directory Listings
• Search Engine Optimization Website Effectiveness
  • Custom Meta Data (title, description & keywords)
  • A customized Keyword Density report
• Search Engine Optimization – Link-Building Articles
• Search Engine Optimization – Ranking & Competitor Comparison
• Search Engine Analytics

Custom Online Marketing Package = Try Out Our Online Marketing Calculator!

Just answer a few simple questions and our online marketing calculator will recommend the best marketing program for your needs.

Ultimately, the most effective search engine marketing program will be an ongoing program that is custom to your business, developed just for your target audience, and that takes your unique circumstances and competitors into consideration.

For many businesses, your online presence will definitely determine your future.  Use our custom calculator to determine the best option for you, depending on seven different marketing variables.

Want to Accelerate Your Business Growth?  These new profitable online marketing services from Lunarpages are definitely the way to go.  Check out our new marketing services today, and learn how you can help you become the number one resource in your field.

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

Original post by Mitch

The important key thing to remember about any password is to keep it easy to remember, but hard to guess.  It might be overlooked by some, but having a good password can mean a lot when it comes to web site security.  Hackers can often guess your password if it is a person, place or thing in the dictionary – even with trailing numbers or letters.

The best password advice I can give to you would be:

• Use Several Capital Letters
• Use Some Symbols (if allowed)
• Toss a Few Numbers in There
• Also Use Some Lower-case Letters Too

Let’s do a little test.  Which one of these password do you think would be more guessable by a hacker.

password1234 or 6P☛ͦr|>9

The second one of course, silly. 

Now how you store your password is just as important as the password itself.  Never write down the password and keep it in plain sight.  Jotting it down on a sticky note and then putting your password on your monitor is about as logical as using the 12345 as a password.

So there you have my general password advice I think everybody should use and follow.  Picking a good password is not hard to do.  When you stop and think about it, common sense goes a long way when security comes to mind.

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

Original post by Mitch

Lunarpages has been hard at work giving it’s customers even more great web hosting tutorials via the web hosting wiki.  The LPCP control panel has released a slew of new features, and the Lunarpages wiki has been updated so that you know how to use all of them.

Here are some of the newest tutorials we have to share with you:

• Server Access Logs in LPCP
• Error Logs in LPCP
• File Manager Help in LPCP
• Connecting to Databases in LPCP
• How to Create and Delete MySQL Users in LPCP

Also, we have added this guide as well:

• Google Attack Site Warning

As you know, your web site’s security is always a top priority to us too. 

Our LPCP team of developers deserve a pat on the back too.  Without them, this innovative web hosting control panel would have never gotten off the ground.  They are a brilliant bunch of developers, and deserve a mention and some praise.

I hope you enjoy these new web hosting tutorials – and if there ever anything else you want to see covered in the wiki, you can always e-mail us to let us know, or leave your suggestions in the comments.

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

Original post by Mitch

Does your web site have a terms of service or privacy policy?  Now, there are many web sites on the Web that really do not require these two documents to be posted, but there are many that could be helped by getting these legal terms posted too.  To help you out I have found a place that will help you generate both for your own web site or business, for no cost to you.

Get Your Legal Documentation Done Easily!

Once you load up the legal document builders, they are very easy to use.  An online entrepreneur only needs to fill out the basics about their web site or business, and the web site wizard takes care of the rest of the work.

Once you are done, the documents you need are returned to you via the Internet automatically, along with an HTML version of the code, so you can easily post it into your own web site’s pages.

You can check out both tools here:

• Privacy Policy Generator
• Terms of Service Generator

Having a good set of legal documentation on your web site to cover your assets is a good thing to go ahead and get covered.  Now, I am far from a lawyer, nor do I play one on the Internet, however Legal River seems to be willing to help with these two form builders to get you pointed in the right direction when it comes to setting up a privacy policy or a terms of service agreement.

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

Original post by Mitch

Better late than never, the January/February edition of the Lunarpages web hosting newsletter is out, and ready to be enjoyed by the masses.  This month we have tons of web hosting tips, tutorials and news to share with you all, so be sure to check it all out, today!

Lunarpages is introducing many neat new services, such as the:

• New Online Marketing Advertising Plans
• Reseller Hosting for Webmasters
• Web Hosting Gift Cards are Back!

Also, to help you advertise your web site out in the real world, we are giving you up to $110 of MySpace advertising credit. If that was not enough, you even get 20 more ways you can earn a buck from your web site hosting too.

That is only half of the greatness we have in store for you this month.  Go check out the rest of the Lunarpages web hosting newsletter to learn more about what is going on in Lunar-land today.

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

Original post by Mitch

Did you know that Lunarpages is giving to its customers upwards of $50 to $100 in free Google AdWords credit?  If you have never tried advertising your business or web site on Google, and you are Lunarpages client – you just lost your last excuse not to at least try it out.  You can now reach a global internet audience using Google AdWords and your Lunarpages web hosting account.

Are you ready to promote yourself? Here is how you get started.

How to Redeem the Free Google AdWords Credit Offer

Step number one would be to login to your Customer Account Page, and then click on the banner image that reads, “Click Here Now for Your Free Google Adwords Credit!”.

Next, click the banner image that reads, “Request Your Credits” and you coupon code will be given.

You will also be given a link they says to, “Click Here to redeem your coupon”.  Going there will send you to a special Google AdWords page where you can sign up for Google Adwords and get the credit you have earned.

If you already have a Google AdWords account, I am afraid this offer is not valid for you.  This is only an offer for people who have yet to ever use Google AdWords.  Depending on the web hosting plan you have, your credit you receive might vary.  Here is a comparison of hosting plans to the amount of Google AdWords credit you are eligible for:

• Basic Hosting Plan = $50 in Google AdWords Credit
• Business Hosting Plan = $50 in Google AdWords Credit
• LPQuicksite Hosting Plan = $50 in Google AdWords Credit
• Windows Hosting Plan = $50 in Google AdWords Credit
• VPS Hosting Plan = $50 in Google AdWords Credit
• Dedicated Hosting Plan = $100 in Google AdWords Credit

So there you have it, one of the best hosting deals out there from one of the best web hosts on the planet.  To learn more about our special Google AdWords offer for Lunarpages customers, be sure to check out Google AdWords Credit Page on Lunarpages.com.

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

Original post by Mitch

Often we overlook the obvious questions posted to a blog.  One of the most obvious questions would be how do you subscribe an stay updated when new blog articles are posted to the Lunartics blog?  Today I’ll let you know what all your options are, so that you can use the one that suits your needs the best.

We are all about posting web hosting and web development related tips, tutorials and more here on blog.lunarpages.com, so if you want to make sure you don’t miss any of them, stay tuned.

Really Simple Syndication

An RSS feed is a document that follows the Really Simple Syndication specification, and is used to syndicate a web site’s content to other places.  The RSS feed is the file path you need to make this all work.  For the Lunarpages Web Hosting Blog here, our RSS feed is located at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/lunartics.

You can take our RSS feed, and plug it into any number of RSS feed readers out there.  This means you could display our blog posts in your Google Reader account, the iGoogle front page, My Yahoo, Pageflakes, Bloglines, Newsgator and more.  Just click one of these buttons to subscribe via the corresponding service, automatically.

You can also copy and paste the feed address into any other RSS feed reader you might not see mentioned above.

Get Updates by E-mail

If you want a more traditional way of keeping track of this blog, you could subscribe via e-mail too.  This way you would get a daily e-mail digest of when the Lunartics blog is updated. 

Subscribe to Lunarpages Hosting Lunartics Blog by Email

When you click the link, you will be prompted to enter your e-mail address into the form that appears, and verify that you wish to subscribe. Once you do, you will get a daily e-mail with everything that has been posted on the Lunarpages Web Hosting Blog.

It is easy to subscribe to make sure you get all of our free web hosting tips, cool coupons, incredible offers and so much more.

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

Original post by Mitch

There are over 200 million people out there on Facebook, have you tried to reach them?  Advertising through Facebook can be a great way to get your business or web site off the ground – and Lunarpages is here to help you get started with a $25 – $50 discount on Facebook Ads. 

By partnering with Lunarpages for your web hosting, you can utilize Facebook Ads to reach your target markets from the largest social networking site in the world.

Discounts Per Web Hosting Package

• Basic Hosting = $25 Facebook Ads Credit
• Business Hosting = $25 Facebook Ads Credit
• VPS Hosting = $50 Facebook Ads Credit
• Dedicated Hosting = $50 Facebook Ads Credit

How to Redeem Your Free Facebook Ads Offer

First, you will need to login to your Customer Account Page, and then locate the Facebook offer banner, as seen here:

Now, click that banner to be taken to the Facebook Ads offer page.  Once there, click on the button that reads, “Request Your Credits”.

You will be given your coupon code, and a link to click through to sign up. 

Facebook Ads FAQ

The rest of the process is pretty simple.  If you get stuck, check out these Facebook Ads FAQs:

• Why do I need to add a credit card to my account in order to use a coupon?
• My coupon code says it’s expired, even though I just got it.
• I didn’t use up all the credit from my coupon, but my credit card was charged.
• I just added my coupon, but my credit card is still being charged.
• I completed my purchase through the vendor, but never received my coupon.
• I entered my coupon code on Facebook, but do not see where/if the credit has been applied to my account.
• Why can’t I activate this coupon even though I have a new account?
• I added my coupon, but did not receive any sort of confirmation. How do I know the credit was added successfully?

Need More Advertising Help?

For more information on the special Lunarpages Facebook Ads offer, be sure to check out Lunarpages.com/Facebook-Ads. Promotional Ad Credits must be applied to a New Facebook Advertiser’s account within 15 days of the creation of the account and is valid only for purchase of Facebook Ads.  Also, this offer is only for new Facebook Ads users.

Lunarpages has provided you one more way to market your web site or business online.

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

Original post by Mitch

If you have a Twitter account, and use it regularly, then there is no reason not to share your most recent tweets with the rest of the world on your own web site.  Thankfully, Twitter makes this a relatively easy thing to do, with the various widgets they provide to all Twitter users. 

On Twitter’s web site, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the, “Goodies” link.  On the next screen, click the “Widgets” link in the middle, and that should take you to the “Select a Widget” web page on Twitter.com.  You can now choose to put a widget on your web site, Facebook or MySpace.  Click on, “My Website” to continue.

Next, you will be asked what type of widget you want.  The choices are:

• Profile Widget – Shows your most recent tweets via Twitter.
• Search Widget – Shows the most recent Tweets about any keyword you choose.
• Faves Widget – Shows the tweets you have marked as favorites.
• List Widget – Shows the most recent tweets for any Twitter List you choose.

Now, all you have to do is select the widget you want, customize the look and feel and then copy and paste the code into your own web site’s layout.

For more help with customizing the code further, you might check out this tutorial:

• Unofficial Twitter Widget Documentation

There is now no reason not to publicize your most recent Twitter tweets on your web site.

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

Original post by Mitch