It’s hard to believe that 2009 is drawing to a close already.  Time flys, and so do plans to grow and improve websites and online marketing plans.  The good news is that with the fresh start of a new year, you can start anew with making improvements to your websites at the same time and not have to feel overwhelmed.  Keeping this in mind, here are just a few small—but effective—ways to improve your website in 2010.

Upgrade to more professional web hosting. Few realize it before making the upgrade, but the bargain-rate shared hosting services that many sites utilize can really adversely effect site performance and search engine performance.  Moving your site to a better web hosting package can be just the performance boost you’ve been seeking—and the price could possibly even be less than you’re paying now.

Continue to expand your social networking efforts. If 2009 was the year of Facebook and Twitter really going mainstream, then just imagine what 2010 will bring for social networking!  The benefits of using social networking to drive traffic to your website are undeniable.  If you’ve already begun, then by all means—keep it up!  And if not, don’t worry…it’s not too late to get started now.  Just try not to put it off until the next new year rolls around.

Integrate CMS into your website. Have a great website already, but beginning to get tired of having to pay the pros every time there’s a small content update to make to the site?  If this sounds all-too-familiar, adding a CMS (content management system) will be the improvement of the year for you.  It’s simply a system that enables you to log in and make content edits and additions with a few simple clicks.  Cost savings and time savings from CMS really add up quickly!

Improve your existing website copy. Speaking of adding and editing your website’s copy, have you given this much thought since first developing your website?  It’s important to keep your website’s written content fresh, accurate, and up-to-date.  After all, visitors and search engines alike practically demand it.

Beef up your site’s security. With a seemingly ever-growing onslaught of security exploits to worry about, web users these days are becoming more and more conscious and wary about what sites they visit and how they transmit information on the web.  Regardless of if your website is e-Commerce enabled or not, you still need to do frequent security audits on your site to make sure your visitors are receiving a safe experience.  Making sure your security certificates are all up to date is just one such example in this department.

Develop an organic SEO development plan. Ready to start improving your website’s organic SEO so you don’t have to spend so much on PPC and other costly paid online marketing promotions in 2010?  Well, the good news here is that it’s simpler than ever to improve your site with quality organic search optimization.  Here are a few SEO pointers to help you get started.  And by laying out a solid plan at the beginning of the year, and working diligently to implement it accordingly, you might even be surprised at how simple, affordable, and downright effective it can be!

Let 2010 be the year that you take your website and your business to the next level (and know that we’re here to help you when you need it).  Wishing you all of the best in the New Year!

Making the decision between a dedicated server and a shared web hosting service to be the online home of your business or organization’s new website can be one of the most important choices you make in the process of launching the site!

Surprisingly enough, many providers recommend one option or the other based on incidental features like monthly transfer and storage space alone.  While these are important considerations, they should really come secondary to the dedicated vs. shared hosting decision.  Why so?

Well, there are major differences between shared and dedicated web hosting services that can significantly impact the performance of your website on multiple levels.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Using a dedicated web hosting server means that your site is the only site on an individual server and on an individual IP address.  It’s a common misconception that having a dedicated server means you’ll keep it and operate it at your own physical location—in reality, most dedicated web hosting plans are actually “managed” plans where you’re paying to use a server that’s professionally maintained in a secure hosting center.

There are substantial benefits to using dedicated web hosting.  Having a dedicated IP address of your very own means that there’s no chance of being banned or penalized by search engines for sharing an IP with another site that uses black hat SEO techniques, maintains illegal content, or is caught for sending spam.  Having bad neighbors on your IP address can really do serious damage to your own site!

Another benefit to having dedicated hosting is that you don’t have to share your server’s memory and processing power with another site that might be a heavy resource user.  Sites that run sophisticated scripts like chat rooms can literally bog the entire server down to a crawl—meaning your site becomes caught up in the traffic jam even if you’re not causing the problem when not using dedicated hosting.

The only real downfall to hosting your website on dedicated server is that it does tend to be a bit more expensive—but usually not prohibitively so if you’re running a growing business or organization that relies heavily on its website (or especially if you’re doing any type of e-commerce.)

Shared Web Hosting

Like the name suggests, shared web hosting is when your site is based on a server and IP address that’s shared with several other websites.  There are cost advantages to doing so.  When you research web hosting on the web, most of the time when you see budget plans under $10 a month or so, these are going to be of the shared hosting arrangement.

For basic brochure-type websites, shared hosting can be a bargain and not necessarily hold your site back in the performance department too much.  Here’s the thing—if you do choose shared web hosting, make sure you’re being hosted on a reputable server and that you’re surrounded by only the best neighbors.  We can help you do an IP search to see exactly what sites are all hosted on your shared server—many are shocked when they find out that they’re sharing their “house” with hundreds of other sites, many of which are less than upstanding net-citizens.

Which One Is Right For You?

In the end, it’s really up to your performance needs and budget.  On one hand, many good sites call shared web hosts their home.  But for growing websites and sites that receive a decent degree of traffic, it’s always worth giving the benefit of the doubt to the dedicated hosting option.  The additional costs are negligible when considering the pitfalls you could run into with a low quality shared service.

And above all, remember that choosing between dedicated and shared hosting is the most important primary part of the web hosting selection process—only consider storage space, traffic quotas, and other features once you’re sure that your site is at home on the right server first.

Trying to scare your website visitors and online customers away?  No problem—here’s some advice on the 7 worst things you could do to your website to accomplish that goal:

1. Make It Too Complicated – When it comes to websites, simple is the name of the game.  Sure, they can use all of the right elements to look professional, elegant, or any other descriptive phrase you could place here—but never overwhelm your visitors by making it too complicated.  Confused and intimidated visitors click the back button faster than you can change their minds!

2. Copy Or Borrow Content – Yikes…definitely don’t do this at all!  First of all, using someone else’s written content without permission is asking for trouble—it is illegal after all.  But the more common mistake is to use the same stock copy or descriptions (with permission, of course) provided by the companies you do business with that are given to all of their other customers to use too.  This is considered duplicate content in the eyes of the search engines, and certainly won’t help your site build traffic.

3. Design It All In Flash – Using a little Flash design in elements of your website here and there is mostly okay (but remember, not all web browsers will display it).  The real problem comes with using Flash intro pages or sites that are entirely Flash-based from header to footer.  While they might look great, they make it practically impossible for the search engines to rank and display your site correctly.

4. Let Your Visitors Know You’re Under Construction – Resist the urge, just don’t do it!  Claiming “under construction” as an exemption for not having the ideal customer-ready website is a major customer confidence turn-off.  If your website isn’t ready for the mainstream, either wait until it is before launching, or at least provide an appropriately scaled-back version until then.

5. Give Your Visitors A Headache – This is easy to do by using too many flashy graphics or too many gimmicks and gadgets that detract from the message at hand.  A couple of other sure-fire ways to give your website visitors a headache would be to use low contrast font/background combinations (you know, the red writing on the black background concept) or forgetting to keep paragraphs short and sweet.  Whitespace is good medicine for web-induced headaches.

6. Use Non-Standardized Navigation – There are a couple of places where we’re all trained by experience to look for a site’s navigation.  Across the top of the page is one place; towards the top of the sidebars is another.  Anytime a website deviates from this standard, it’s alienating visitors, discouraging them from exploring the site further, and potentially creating a usability nightmare.  Steer clear from unusual website navigation concepts.

7. Use Slow Loading Components (Or A Slow Server) – It’s surprising how many folks believe that just because broadband internet connections are practically universal these days, that it’s somehow okay to load a website up with huge-sized, slow-downloading components.  The thing is, now that everyone is thoroughly used to their high speed internet access, the last thing that they have is patience for a snail-slow website or an overloaded web hosting server.  Blink of an eye is the only way to go.

Okay, okay…so please don’t actually do these 7 things.  They really will hurt your website!

Want to create an online store?  If so, welcome to the exciting world of e-commerce!  You should know that building your online store correctly the first time saves lots of headache and hassle down the road.  To help you get started on the right path, here’s an overview of the 7 must-have components of an online store:

1.  Domain Name – Just like opening any business, you’ll need a name—but you’ll also need an address too, right?  Well, in many cases, your domain name is kind of your website address and name rolled into one.  Getting your domain name just right is important—here’s how to choose the right domain name.

2.  Web Hosting – If you think of your domain name as your address, then your web hosting could be considered your online business’s “building.”  Technically, your web host is the computer server for your website—it’s where all of your website files are stored for the world to see.  Just like you would avoid choosing a dilapidated, falling down building to host your brick and mortar business, you certainly don’t want to skimp when it comes to your online web hosting either.

3.  Dedicated IP Address – Without getting overly technical, one vital benefit of using a dedicated IP address is the fact that you won’t be penalized for having “bad neighbors” on a shared IP.  In other words, with cheap hosting, it’s common to share your IP with up to hundreds of different websites.  If just one of these sites uses black hat SEO tactics or broadcasts spam, you’ll be subject to penalties from the search engines…simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If you’re serious about your online business, then it’s definitely wise to procure a dedicated IP address so you’re not adversely affected by bad neighbors.

4.  Web Design – As an online business, the image you portray to your customers can either make or break you.  Sure, web design must be eye appealing—it must look awesome—but at the same time, there are other components that quality, professional web design must account for too.  Effective navigation, accessibility, ease of use, and clean standards-compliant coding are just a few web design goals you should seek to achieve for your online store.

5.  Shopping Cart Software – This is what enables customers to browse through your portfolio of products, select the items and quantities they’d like to purchase, and ultimately, enter their contact and purchasing information to complete the deal.  Essentially, your shopping cart software works in harmony with your web design.  No online store would be complete without shopping care software!

6.  SSL Security Certificate – When it comes time to collect sensitive information from your customers to facilitate a sale, you’ll need a way to make sure that the contact and payment details they provide are transmitted securely across the internet without making it privy to prying eyes.  This is accomplished by maintaining and installing an SSL security certificate to ensure your customers that their data will be fully encrypted as it’s transferred.

7.  Payment Gateway – Finally, the last step in the online store process before fulfillment takes place is collecting the payment.  In most cases, the best way to achieve this is by using a merchant account provided by a bank along with a payment gateway (like Authorize.Net) to actually carry out the transaction.  It is this vital link that connects your store’s online shopping cart to your bank account.

While these 7 components are the basics of any online store, naturally there are few more things to consider as well.  This is why it always helps to work with experienced pros to get it right the first time!

Rackspace is a monster hosting company and houses the Sleepless Media dedicated servers at their virtually flawless datacenter in Texas. They offer fanatical 24/7 support and a 100% uptime guarantee, allowing us to provide our web hosting clients with great service and support.

Visit their website at www.rackspace.com

Step 1 – Navigating your Control Panel

Once inside your Control Panel Home, you will be able to access your domain(s)

by clicking on the appropriate domain name listed in the lower portion of the page.

For information on how to get to your Control Panel click here.

Step 2 – Accessing your Mail Center

Your hosting Control Panel has a dedicated area where you can manage all

email accounts associated with your domain.

To access the Mail Center for your domain, click the Mail Icon circled below.

Step 3 – Adding a new email address to your account

To add a new email address to your account click the icon, Add New Mail Name

circled below.

Step 4 – Setting up your new mail account

To set up the new email account, enter the mail name in the box circled below.

For example, if you want to set up the email address info@yourdomain.com,

the mail name would be “info”.

Once you have entered the mail name, type a password in the password field.

Your password must be at least 5 characters and may not contain a part of the

domain name or mail name inside of it.

It is reccomended to use a combination of letters and numbers for a more secure password.

Once you have completed these steps, you may click “OK” and your mail setup is complete.

Change your email password

To change your email address password, choose the email address from the list which

you would like to change.

Choose the Preferences Icon circled to enter a new password.

Enter the new password and click “OK”