Web Concepts

By Mitch “Tipster” Keeler

Think of it as one of those sticky fly traps you hang outside in the summer to keep the flying insects away from your BB&Q. You don’t want to just lead people to your site, you want to lead them to it - get them interested and then catch them. Don’t let them go because they might not come back. Hooking visitors is a sweet science I am not sure anybody has really mastered to a T (or Mr. T). These tips should help you get on the right track though when it comes making your visitors come back.

Social Interaction - Add something like the AddThis.com or ShareThis.com badges to your web site so that people can share that information with others in the way that suits them best.

Vote - Don’t overlook the idea of adding polls to your web site layout. Giving your viewers something to do will keep them on your web site a little longer. One easy way of getting a poll up and running would be via PollDaddy.com.

Blog it - Think your web site is a little light weight, and could use some more “meat and potatoes”? A blog would be a great way to fill your web site out a little more and keep your visitors coming back for more. I would highly suggest installing WordPress for your blogging needs, but there are many alternatives.

Build a Community - Forums always come in handy to help build a community or start one. SMF is probably the most reliable of the bunch in my opinion. With it your visitors can talk with you and each other.

Syndication - If you can, toss in some RSS feeds for your visitors to grab. This way they can subscribe to your web site’s content, get updates about your latest news, and have a trail back to your web site past that first visit. Once you do get an RSS feed going hook it up with a service like FeedBurner to track how many people are subscribing.

Know of anymore helpful tips to make you web site viewers come back for more? I’d love to hear ‘em.

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Original post by Mitch

I have gotten a handful of e-mails from people asking me to go over and explain blogging. From head to toe, first you need to find a blogging script to use, then you need to find the best way for you to blog and lastly you need something to blog about.

Blog and Content Management Scripts

Of course, to setup a blog you must first have a good blogging script or content management system. Here are a few of the best alternatives out there to choose from:

• WordPress
• Drupal
• AJAXPress
• CuteNews
• MovableType
• Textpattern
• Serendipity
• Joomla
• b2evolution
• blojsom
• Sblog
• Expression Engine
• blosxom
• Simplog
• Nucleus
• Wikiblog
• bBlog

Best Tools to Blog?

There are a number of tools out there that will help you to post to your blog. One of the best of the best out there (and yes, it even surprised me!) Is Windows Live Writer.

I can tell you from personal experience it is a superb companion to WordPress (because it is what I am using to write this, right now!). All you need to do is plugin your WordPress login info and address and it does the work for you. If you are using Firefox, then you might want to look at the ScribeFire addon.

(more…)

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Better than a Newspaper” Keeler

There have been several little things to share going on here at Lunarpages, so let me see if I can sum things up:

Lunarpages February newsletter is out! There are tons of goodies in store for you too. You can browse though the links here or just visit web-hosting-newsletter.com for February’s issue and any past issues you would like to browse though.

Need a layout or design? Time to rejoice! Lunarpages now has an awesome designer’s directory.

In other news, Lunarpages has also started delivering Basic and Business plan customers unlimited addon domains. This is a feature that should come with all new orders and older customers will be upgraded to the new limit over the next several weeks. This is a feature you wanted, so we delivered.

The Lunarforums Site of the Month voting is underway. Be sure to vote, and check back on March 1st as I’ll come in on my day off to announce the winner. Really excited about the line up this month, and I am really looking forward for this to be a returning contest month after month!

Also don’t forget to check out our new free hosting downloads page to get tons of free and open source applications to help you with your own web site creations.

Be sure to check out the LunarNews post form this month’s newsletter to read up on more fantastic offers, upgrades, deals and specials from us to you.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Forum Plugger” Keeler??

We are in the middle of bringing back an old favorite that many seemed to enjoy the Web Site of the Month. The Web site of the month forum is back open and running over at Lunarforums.com and now all we need is your vote. Here are the stipulations and rules:

1. You can submit your entries in for the web site of the month to me, via a PM here on the forums.
2. The web site in question must be hosted here at Lunarpages, either as a primary, subdomain or addon domain.
3. The final week of the month, I will put up a poll where you can vote out of 5 randomly drawn submissions.
4. Whoever has the most votes at the end of that week, will be our winner for that month!

Remember, if you submit one month - and don’t win, you can submit again the next month! Also, once you have won you won’t be able to re-submit yourself so you can win again. We want to have as many winners as we can!

Winners will get a special badge to display on their site, the honor of being our choice for a month and also a mention in our Lunarpages Newsletter.

Read more about it on the Lunarforums thread about it, and be sure to submit your own Lunarpages hosted site to me via the board’s personal message system or drop me an e-mail.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Ain’t No Hemingway” Keeler

Having done my fair share of content writing for a number of years, I can say that I have seen what works and what does not work. If you want to master the written (or keyed in our case) word, follow these three simple rules.

1. Don’t be Afraid of Headlines

Tossing in a few headlines into the mix on an article, blog post or any web page filled with content is a good way to lead the eyes through your writing. We have all see the huge one paragraph web site that we groan at. Why do you groan? Your eyes have no direction to go. Think of it as driving cross country without a bathroom break. Your eyes might be able to hold up better than your bladder - but neither will be happy once you make it from coast to coast.

2. Break Your Text Up (or Paragraphs are your Friends)

This sort of goes into the same camp as the headlines rule. Break your writing up by paragraph so that any eyeballs viewing the page, post or article in question does not start to stray. In the world of instant gratification we all want our news short, quick and to the point. Attention spans are lacking and I’d rather quickly scan through a few paragraphs of text than one really big one.

3. Inform, then Define

Often people get in a hurry to tell you why, how or who will make your life better but they don’t tell you what this thing really is. You get a gitty as a school girl on her first date, only to find out by the time you get to the end of the post you really don’t know what it is they were talking about. When discussing something that many or most might not know about do your best to define it before you get into the details of how it will help. Give me a dictionary definition and then you can tell me a story about it. Without you are causing the vistor to get over excited about.. well, what was it about again?

Exactly.

Maybe you will not notice the difference right away, but if you modify your own writing to match at least these three rules I can almost promise you that you will see more page views, higher clickthroughs and more happy bloodshot eyeballs than a bad science fiction movie. Don’t give people a reason to turn away, because once they do it is awful hard to get them to look back.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

By Amy Armitage

Dreamhost has had a billing glitch and has billed hundreds of customers for as much as 2 years in advance, with debits/charges up to $400 in some cases.

Last year DreamHost wrote this post on their blog:

It’s something we like to do every day!

Yep, the secret to our crazy low prices and amazing ferraris, finally revealed:

We take your billing address and go to your homes at night to steal your jewelry, plasma TVs, and all valuable toiletries!

Not to mention all the credit card numbers we get fund our wild vegas benders (roulette is a great way to launder money) and illicit basketball leagues!

(Damn PayPal and Google Checkout, not sharing the credit card info with us!)

Yeah, overall it’s a pretty sweet scheme we’ve had these past 10 years; and now that we’ve gone into hiding you’ll never catch us, coppers!

–

WOW …. /shakes head @ DreamHost

At the time, we remained silent and didn’t play their sleazy games, yet today on Digg we heard about their latest fiasco…

For all DH webmasters looking for an escape, Lunarpages has created a coupon code just for you! Use code DHRefugees to receive $40 off hosting with Lunarpages and we will also buy out the remainder of your contract with DreamHost!  (Up to 9 months!) If you have several months left on your contract with DH, sign up for Lunarpages and email us your billing receipt (not the triple billing ones.. lol) and we will add that extra time to your account with us!

Wanna play ball now DH?

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Amy

By Mitch Keeler

Tis’ the time of the year to be doing all those things you’ve been putting off for so long. Nobody really rolls out updates in December because we are all too filled up with eggnog to work on our web sites. With that said, it does make for a perfect time to work on that to do list you should be doing every six months or so with your web site.

1. Review your terms of service or acceptable use policy (if you have them) to make sure you have all of your bases covered.

2. Update your “about us” page with new details, or refreshed details about your own personal information or project your web site is about.

3. See if there are any script updates you need to do, like with your blog, forums or other content management systems. Actually this one you should do more than once a year - but worth mentioning just in case you have not.

4. Check your links (or as many as you can) to make sure they are still working.

5. Go through your 404 errors - and make sure you are redirecting the ones you need to and make sure a page didn’t go missing in action while you were looking elsewhere.

6. Start work on a new web site layout if needed. Always good to spruce up your visual look - even if you just reorganize how things are laid out or change the colors a ‘bit.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

by Mitch “Ain’t No Picasso“ Keeler

When working on your web site and trying to see what you could do to make it better, there is nothing at all wrong with looking at others styles and techniques to see if it inspires you to create a better look and feel for your own project.

Once of my new favorite resources to do just that is Best Web Design:

It is an “inspirational gallery site where we collect a wide range of quality design websites (Flash & CSS).” Translation? They have a lot of pretty layouts to go drool over.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

Author: Mitch Keeler

I don’t like paying for a lot. Why pay for advertising and marketing when you don’t have to? Here are a few was you too can become a cheapskate thrifty Online marketing mind.

Hit up the Forums and Message Boards

Posting your links in forum or message board signature sections might be another way to keep people coming to your web sites. It doesn’t cost a thing - and if your an active member of several forums it is a good way to grab people’s eyes.

Advertise with Your Message Board Profile Icon

Message board icons or graphics are a good way to go too. Instead of just having a picture of yourself there - put in your picture and your domain really small on the bottom of the graphic. This way you can have a double wammy along with the forum signature link to get more attention without paying a dime. (more…)

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch

Author: Mitch Keeler

I don’t like paying for a lot. Why pay for advertising and marketing when you don’t have to? Here are a few was you too can become a cheapskate thrifty Online marketing mind.

Hit up the Forums and Message Boards

Posting your links in forum or message board signature sections might be another way to keep people coming to your web sites. It doesn’t cost a thing - and if your an active member of several forums it is a good way to grab people’s eyes.

Advertise with Your Message Board Profile Icon

Message board icons or graphics are a good way to go too. Instead of just having a picture of yourself there - put in your picture and your domain really small on the bottom of the graphic. This way you can have a double wammy along with the forum signature link to get more attention without paying a dime. (more…)

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Mitch