15 Most Annoying Things about WordPress and How to Fix Them

Like most things in life, WordPress also has it’s fair share of annoying things. Dealing with these annoyances is very easy with the right system and processes. In this article, we will show you the 15 most annoying things about WordPress and how to fix them.

1. Setting up WordPress Backup

WordPress does not come with a built-in backup system. You are supposed to create your own backups instead of relying on your WordPress hosting company.

Having a regular backup saves you the frustration when something bad happens to your website.

There are plenty of free and paid backup solutions available for WordPress. See our comparison of the 7 best WordPress backup plugins.

2. Deleting the Uncategorized Category

WordPress comes with two built in taxonomies, they are called categories and tags. By default, each new post you create is filed into a built-in category titled Uncategorized.

If you forget to assign the post to a category, then it will be filed under Uncategorized. This looks unprofessional, but you can easily fix it.

See our guide on how to change the default Uncategorized category in WordPress.

3. Changing The Username

During WordPress installation or at the time of user creation, you can choose a username for the account.

However the problem is that there’s no easy way to change the username once it’s created. This can be extremely annoying.

Thankfully, we have a tutorial that shows you the easy way to change your WordPress username.

4. Adding More Formatting Options to the Post Editor

By default, WordPress comes with two types of writing areas in the post editor. The Visual Editor, which is a WYSIWYG editor, and Text Editor which is a plain text editor.

Switching from Visual to Text and then Back to Visual editor will ruin your formatting. But you need to switch to the text editor if you want to add custom HTML formatting in WordPress.

One easy solution is to stick with the Text editor and learn some basic HTML formatting. However if you want to use Visual editor, then you can use TinyMCE advanced plugin. It extends the default WordPress Visual editor with more formatting options.

See: 14 Tips to Master the WordPress Visual Editor

5. Enabling Shortcodes for WordPress Widgets

Shortcodes allow you to add functionality into WordPress text areas without writing any code. However, shortcodes do not work in WordPress text widgets by default.

Thankfully, there’s an easy fix for that.

Simply add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.

add_filter('widget_text','do_shortcode');

If you don’t want to add the code manually, then you can install and activate the Shortcode Widget plugin. It adds a shortcode widget in your WordPress widgets, which is exactly like a text widget but allows you to add shortcodes.

6. Getting Locked Out of WordPress

Sometimes you may end up locking yourself out of the WordPress admin area. Either you forgot your password and unable to recover it, or something broke when you were adding code or a plugin.

We have created a handy guide on what to do when you are locked out of the WordPress admin area. It will help you learn how to fix this in different scenarios.

7. Deactivating All WordPress Plugins

When troubleshooting some problem on your WordPress site, you will be advised to deactivate all WordPress plugins. You can just go to plugins page and deactivate all plugins.

But what if you don’t have access to the WordPress admin area? Here is how you can deactivate all WordPress plugins using FTP.

8. Fixing Common WordPress Errors

WordPress comes with a slight learning curve, and you get to learn things as you go along. Somethings are easier to learn than others.

The most frustrating and annoying thing for beginners are the common WordPress errors.

That’s why we have compiled a list of 14 common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

9. Setting up Automatic Updates for WordPress Plugins

All good WordPress plugins are regularly updated. If you are using the best WordPress plugins on your website, then chances are that you will be installing updates quite often.

Installing updates take only a few seconds, but it can be distracting to login and find new updates. See our guide on how to automatically install updates for WordPress plugins.

10. Creating Better Image Galleries

While you can create galleries in the default WordPress installation, it’s not as useful because it lacks features like Albums, tagging, lightboxes, and more.

Thankfully there’s a plugin like Envira Gallery available which allows you to create beautiful image galleries in WordPress without compromising speed.

You can add Albums, watermarks, sell your photos, and more.

11. Delete Hello Dolly Plugin

Each WordPress site comes with two default plugins pre-installed. Hello Dolly is one of them. This plugin doesn’t receive any updates and does nothing useful for your site.

Learn more about Hello Dolly plugin and why you should delete it.

12. Customizing WordPress Excerpts

By default, WordPress displays full posts on homepage, archives, and category pages. This not only creates duplicate content on your site, but it also discourages users from viewing the full post and leaving comments. See our guide on full post vs excerpt in your WordPress archive pages

By displaying excerpts on these pages, you can increase your pageviews and user engagement. See our guide on how to customize WordPress excerpts without any coding.

13. Showing Excerpts in RSS Feeds

WordPress also shows your full articles in the RSS Feed. This means users reading your posts in a feed reader will have no reason to visit your website.

You can easily change this from WordPress admin area. Go to Settings » Reading page and scroll down to ‘For each article in a feed, show’ option and select Summary. Click on the save changes button to store your settings.

14. Dealing with Comment Spam

Spam comments are one of the most annoying things. WordPress comes with built-in comment moderation to deal with spam comments. However comment spam can quickly grow, and before you know it you will be spending more time moderating comments.

First thing you need to do is start using Akismet. It will catch most spam comments and keep them away from your moderation queue.

You may also want to check out these 12 vital tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

15. Improving WordPress Search

WordPress comes with a built-in search feature, but it’s not very good. If search is important for your website, then you will need to replace the default search with something better.

Thankfully, there are some great alternatives to improve WordPress search. Check out our list of 12 WordPress search plugins to improve your site search.

We hope this article helped you fix some of the most annoying things about WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on 19 Actionable Tips to Drive Traffic to Your New WordPress Site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 15 Most Annoying Things about WordPress and How to Fix Them appeared first on WPBeginner.

What you need to know about domain names?

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When starting up a website there is a couple of basics that you cannot avoid, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/domain-tips/">picking up and registering a domain name for example, is a must-do for every website owners. While it seems straight forward to select and purchase a domain name, there are quite a few fundamentals that you must know before making any decision.

In this article, I’m going to share with you a few frequent asked questions about domain names and I hope it will helps you to make better judgment.

Domain Name vs Web Hosting

A domain name is not a href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/web-hosting-beginner-guide/">web hosting. Newbies often mix things up between domain names and hosting, these are two different things. A web hosting is where you get to store your data online; whereas a domain name is the ‘address’ of these data.

Domain Name vs Top Level Domain

All domain names end with a Top Level Domain (TLD), which consists of short set of letters. Take this website for example (WebHostingSecretRevealed.com), WebHostingSecretRevealed is the domain name whereas the ‘.com’ is the TLD. .net, .info, .org, .edu, and .biz are some of the common seen Top Level Domain.

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Besides these generic TLDs, there is also another type of Top Level Domain that is normally known as the Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). ccTLDs are meant to indicate a website’s location; for example website ends with .co.jp indicates that the site is based in Japan. Registration of ccTLDs is restricted for the citizens of the corresponding country; and the activities with such domains website are ruled by local regulations and cyber laws.

Subdomain vs Addon Domain

An addon domain refers to the additional domain name to be hosted in a hosting account; on the other hand, a subdomain refers to the secondary domain that is created on top of a ‘parent domain’.

Example: uk.yahoo.com, uk is the subdomain (with yahoo.com as the parent); if flickr.com and yahoo.com is hosted on the same hosting account, then flickr.com is the addon domain. Note that creating a subdomain is totally free of charge, while for addon domain you’ll need to pay just like when you are registering your primary domain.

How domain name works?

When the user requests a connection to your domain, Domain Name System (DNS) servers will ‘communicate’ with the corresponding registry for the requested domain; the registry then responds by informing which name servers (address of your web host) this domain is registered with; the request then goes to the name servers to obtain the actual IP address of the requested domain; the user then establishes connection (via web browser) with the said IP address.

Long story short, a domain name, with the help of DNS, tells the location of your website.

What is a domain name registrar?

id="right">

About Domain Privacy

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This article is a follow up on my previous article about href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/web-hosting-knowledge/what-you-need-to-know-about-domain-names/">domain names. Most people do not realize that your domain registration details are often made freely available online. Personally identifiable information that you (as a domain owner) would probably like to keep confidential is exposed to virtually anyone with internet access – yes, just a simple ‘WHOIS’ search and your name, residential address and email address, telephone numbers, etc… will be exposed to the public.

Sounds scary?

In fact this is why the practice of using a fake address and registrant name for the WHOISdata is still pretty common nowadays for self protection. However, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), global regulatory body for the domain name industry) has a policy stating that each and every registrar is required to keep a WHOIS database that contains publicly accessible contact information for all names that have been registered. What make things worse, if you do not submit correct or complete information; your domain name is subject to being deleted from the registry.

I know, it’s depressing to realize how limited is our defense against data miners, spammers, and identity thefts. I bet if people knew that they could be put in such a bind, they would probably think twice about registering a domain name.

But wait, for every problem on the internet there is a solution. This is where domain privacy (also, WHOIS Privacy) comes in. Domain privacy is a type of addon service mainly offered by domain registrars.

How domain privacy works?

A user buys privacy from the company, who in turn replaces the user’s info in the WHOIS with the info of a forwarding service (for email and sometimes postal mail, done by a Proxy server) such as “Domains by Proxy, Inc.” or eNom’s “Whois Privacy Protection Service”.

Is my private info 100% safe after utilizing domain privacy feature?

The domain privacy feature is often seen as the ‘ultimate protection’ on WHOIS info. Just a simple search online would leads you to dozens of articles stating the benefits of domain privacy. Spam protection and info shielding are two of the most trumpeted benefits of a domain privacy feature.

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But wait, nothing is completely safe online.

A domain privacy feature is like a firewall in computer network – it simply shields your info from the public but your data is still kept in registrar’s database and there is still risk of info leaking. To many registrars, it takes little persuasion to release the so-called ‘private’ information to the world, requiring only a phone request or cease and desist letter.

This explains why some webmasters will take the hassle of ordering using money order (to avoid exposing credit card info) and registering their domain name offshore (to reduce the chance of local syndicate attacks).

Back to our question: Is private information 100% protected under domain privacy feature? Not really. In many cases, it’s just a feature people buy to help them to sleep better at night.

More readings about domain privacy

I hope this short article will raise your awareness about WHOIS info and the privacy protection you can have against unethical acts. There is an in-depth article (href="http://news.cnet.com/Private-domains-not-so-private/2100-1038_3-5833663.html ">Private Domains Not So Private) by Daniel Terdiman on CNet back in year 2005, I suggest you to read it if you wish to learn more on the topic.

Page 28 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

About Shared Web Hosting Services

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The most important part after completing the creation of web pages, is hosting the website over the internet by an href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/compare-best-five-hosting/">efficient hosting service.

If you will surf around the internet you can find several hosting packages, claiming them as the best, by which you can host your website for making it accessible over the internet via World Wide Web. Many href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-reviews/">web hosting companies offer packages like dedicated hosting, managed web host services, virtual data centres and others but the hosting package which offers you the best result in terms of performance and budget is the shared web hosting service.

Concept of Shared Web Hosting

Shared Web hosting is one of the most popular webs hosting service over the internet because of its economic budget and reliable features.

Almost all of the hosting providers over the globe offer the shared web hosting package which is in high demand for individual and small scale websites.  In shared website hosting technique, several websites are hosted over a single robust server and they access the computation infrastructural resources of the particular server including web space, data-processing feature, random access memory and others. The cost associated with shared webhosting is very economical as the server acquiring and maintaining cost is distributed over all the websites hosted by that specific server.

Advantages of Shared Web Hosting

The various web hosting benefits associated with shared hosting are reviewed below:

Cost efficiency  The best benefit associated with shared mode of web hosting is the budget price. As the specific server hosts several websites over the internet, thus the cost is distributed over each of the website leading to much cheaper rates which you cannot find on other hosting service packages. Normally, the annual cost lies with shared hosting ranges in between to 0. And you don’t have to compromise with the web space and speed as you will get great web space of around 1 GB and up to 50 GB or even higher bandwidth.

Feasibility and operational ease As the servers under shared hosting are associated with several websites, so any individual has not to worry much about maintaining the server. Highly efficient IT experts look after the performance of the server this makes web site hosting feasible for many organizations that are not much handy with hosting techniques.

Utility Management Tool  Irrespective of the number of websites shared over a single server, web-hosting companies provide the administrative utility panel to each of the website separately. Through this admin utility control page, a user can do the modification and customization of the webpages. Also one can issue the subdomains and can create site emails as like the normal web hosting features.

Limitations associated with Shared Hosting

Though shared web hosting technique is money valued and featured hosting package but still there are few drawbacks that comes with the service. Some of such drawbacks are listed as under:

• The main drawback is related with the safety issues. A shared web hosting service offers less security as many websites share the common server.
• The shared hosting holds good for small websites but its performance highly degraded with bulk weighted websites
• Less robustness is also a limitation which one has to deal with shared hosting.
• No dedicated IP address
• Self-handling and update of web pages.
• Some examples of good shared hosting providers: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/ipage/">iPage, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/webhostinghub/">WebHostingHub, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/hostgator/">Hostgator, and href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/greengeeks-hosting/">Green Geeks.

Page 26 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

About iPage Weekend Sales ($2.95/mo)

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Hey, I am terribly sorry if you missed the previous iPage’s weekend sales. Truth is, I was enjoying my week in href="http://wikitravel.org/en/Bali" target="_blank">Bali, Indonesia.

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0720-2.jpg" alt="Bali" class="border" />

(That’s Tanah Lot Sea Temple – where you can enjoy one of nicest sunset scenes in the world.)

I didn’t get any notification about the promotion upfront and had no idea this was coming. I did manage to href="http://twitter.com/WebHostingJerry/status/92194256357302273">tweet about it (I brought my iPad!) from Bali on Saturday but I doubt many of you guys got the message.

Time Limited Offer: iPage Discount .95/mo

The good news is, for some unknown reason, the folks at iPage is extending the promotion and according to the site, at this time of writing, you have roughly another day. For the next (roughly) 24 hours, you’ll get a 58% price cut upon signup. The promotion slashes iPage price from .95/mo to .95/mo. (see print screen).

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Get this promotion now, visit href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/ipage.php" target="_blank">http://www.ipage.com within the next 24 hours.

Why you should have a look on this iPage promotion

A few reason why I think this promo is a great one:

1. It’s A Great Savings The price cut, from .95/mo to .95/mo is H.U.G.E. Take 24 months subscription for example, that’s almost 0 savings. Everything you get is the same; the only different is that you will be paying much lesser than those who do not signup during this promotion period.

2. It’s (kind of ) Rare I don’t often see offer like this from iPage. In fact I was a little surprise when I noticed the huge discount. Ever since the host raised its price tag early this year, I thought the good days of cheap good hosting were (sort of) gone. Well, apparently I am wrong (for the next 24 hours). :)

So hey, in case you are looking for a budget host or you are still wondering if iPage is a go, make sure you href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/ipage.php">check out this iPage discount. To learn more about iPage, feel free to check out my updated href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/ipage-review/">iPage review.

Page 27 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Everything You Need To Know About Choosing A Domain Name

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You have a great business opportunity, and you want to share your ideas with the world. Before you can create the website that you’ll use to do this, however, you need to choose a suitable domain name. A domain name (also called a host name) is the same as the website’s URL. It’s the section that comes after “www.” and is usually followed by “.com”, “.org”, “.net” or another extension.

The domain you choose could have a huge impact on the success of your website, as this is what visitors will need to remember in order to find your business online. If you’re in a hurry to start building the actual site, it can be tempting to purchase the first domain your think of from the first seller you find, however by doing this you won’t necessarily get the best domain for your website, nor will you pay the best price.

This article covers several important factors you should consider when choosing and purchasing a domain name for your new website. Follow these steps, and you’ll have a successful, SEO-friendly domain up and running in no time. In case you need more technical info (and the ‘how it works’ logic) about web domain, you can also check out Jerry’s recent article href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/all-you-need-to-know-about-domain-names/">The Technical Details Behind Domain Names.

Choosing Your Domain Name

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Choosing the actual words and phrases that form your domain name is probably the hardest part of the process. It requires creativity, marketing savvy, and the ability to look at your website from the point of view of a visitor.

Let’s start with the hostname. This should contain keywords that are relevant to your business and, ideally, your business name. If the name of your business isn’t available as a domain, try selecting a domain that communicates what your business does. For example, if you run a business called “Carpets4Home” in Los Angeles and the domain “Carpets4Home.com” isn’t available, you could purchase “bestLAcarpets.com” instead. This demonstrates what you’re selling, and has SEO potential when you’re writing your web copy.

The Shorter The Better

As a general rule, the shorter your host name is, the better. The more people are likely to remember it, the more likely they are to remember and return to your website. For the same reason, you should also choose a name with an obvious spelling. If the exact name you want isn’t available, think carefully before substituting letters or words, for example choosing “skool” instead of “school” or “catz” instead of “cats”.

No Numbers For Letters

Another domain no-no is replacing letters with numbers (except when you use numbers as part of your business name), for example writing “4” instead of “for”, or “2” instead of “two”. Even if a potential customer or client remembers your domain name, they are more likely to use the correct spelling of the word, and could end up on someone else’s web page.

SEO blog rel="nofollow" href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name" target="_blank">Seomoz suggests additional tips that can help you minimize the risk of losing web visitors, like excluding hyphens, and avoiding using the number 0, as it looks very similar to the letter O.

Copyright Issues

When selecting a domain name for your new website, it’s important to check you’re not infringing on another website’s copyright. This is illegal and, if you use a copyrighted website name, you could find yourself in trouble, and lose your carefully nurtured brand, further down the line. You can usually tell whether another website has copyrighted the same site or brand name with a quick Google search. If you want to look into the matter more thoroughly, visit rel="nofollow" href="http://www.copyright.gov/" target="_blank">The United States Copyright Office and search their directories.

The .com’s Bias

Once you’ve selected a hostname, you need to decide which extension to choose. Many web developers are divided over this issue. Some are adamant that you should choose a domain with a “.com” extension at all costs, while others say that the extension doesn’t matter as long as you have a good hostname.

The arguments for choosing a domain with a .com extension include that it adds more credibility to your website. Additionally, people are more likely to assume the extension is “.com”, and could end up visiting a competitor’s website if you have the same domain name but a different extension. The arguments against only choosing domain names that have a “.com” extension include that you’re limited in your selection, and could end up compromising on your domain name in a way that won’t be helpful for your branding or SEO.

Christopher Heng, founder of rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml" target="_blank">thesitewizard.com, advises website owners that it’s a good idea to promote the website using the full domain name if you’re using an extension that isn’t “.com” to minimize the chance that web users will end up on a competitor’s website.

Purchasing A Domain

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Once you’ve chosen a suitable domain name for your business, the next step is to compare pricing from different domain sellers. The average price for a domain hovers around per year, however if your domain is only available through an auction, this could be a lot more.

If someone else currently owns the domain you want, you can try purchasing it through auction, or by making an offer to the owner. There is no guarantee that either of these methods will get you the domain you want, and they could end up costing you a lot more than registering a normal domain would, but if you have your heart set on it then it’s worth trying.

Research domain registrars. You might have initially found your ideal domain through a specific seller, but the same domain could also be available through other services at a lower price.

As well as purchasing the core domain you intend to use for your website, you should also try to purchase variations on your domain name, recommends rel="nofollow" href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/05/28/should-you-secure-com-and-net-for-your-domain/" target="_blank">ProBlogger author Darren Rowse. This means that if your new website is happycat.com, you should also consider purchasing the same domain with different extensions (“.net”, “.org”, “.co.uk”), and the plural, happycats.com. Then, you can redirect all these domains back to your original website, increasing the likelihood that potential customers will find you.

Domain Resources

If you’re stuck for a domain name and need some inspiration, or you’re not sure where to purchase your domain of choice, here are a list of websites that can help.

rel="nofollow" href="http://ajaxwhois.com/" target="_blank">Ajaxhois 2.0 is a useful service that enables you to check whether a domain name is free or not. You can also look at any available statistics for the web address to see how many people visit that URL.

href="http://www.domainnamesoup.com/" target="_blank">Domain Name Soup, rel="nofollow" href="http://www.namestation.com/?utm_expid=604578-0" target="_blank">Namestation and rel="nofollow" href="http://www.domainfellow.com/" target="_blank">Domain Fellow are a free domain name generators that can help you through creative blocks. They are particularly useful if you don’t know what you want to call your website or business yet, or are stuck for which keywords you want to include in your domain name.

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/godaddy" target="_blank">GoDaddy and rel="nofollow" href="http://www.register.com/" target="_blank">Register.com, for example, are domain registrar companies that also offer web hosting services. You can select and buy your domain through these websites without signing up to a hosting package, however if hosting is something you also need, some people find it easier to purchase a domain name and hosting from the same provider.

Even if you’re in a hurry, comparing the prices and terms of different domain registrars will help you get the best long-term deal on your domain name, so you can focus on building your website and moving your business up to the next level.

Page 21 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Tips for Writing a Testimonial about Yourself

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5 Trends in Web Hosting That You Should Know About

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Here at Web Hosting Secrets Revealed, we spend a lot of time thinking about web hosting.

Generally speaking, we look at how href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/compare-best-five-hosting/">individual web hosts stand up in terms of cost, service, and reliability.  These are real and important factors when you’re considering a host for your site. But there’s a whole industry here, with dynamics and factors at play that effect the kinds of services you can access as consumers and how those services are delivered.

Downtime means lost money, unhappy visitors, and potential damage to your search rank.  When issues arise, the ability to reach a competent human being can be the difference between speedy resolution and hours of frustration. And cost is straightforward: when you’re working on a limited budget or just trying to maximize profit, you want the most bandwidth, storage space, and loading speed that your dollars can buy. Understanding the changing hosting landscape can help you make informed choices about providers that will meet your technological needs over the long haul.

Like every other space, hosting is continually evolving. Technologies are changing and improving, and as a result the technological boundaries of hosting are being pushed as well to meet the changing demand. This creates opportunities for consumers: not just to search for the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/ultimate-cheap-web-hosting-guide/">cheapest hosting deal or the most flexible hosting model, but to think about what kinds of business models they want to support and whether or not they need specific features in their packages.

But where is the hosting industry headed in 2012 and beyond.  At the recent href="http://www.hostingcon.com/blog/hostingcon-2012-attendance-information-guide/" rel="nofollow">HostingCon 2012, a number of the industry’s key players gathered to talk about the latest concerns and areas of innovation for the industry. Here are 5 big trends that are worth paying attention to as we move into the next twelve months.

1. Improving Security In The Cloud

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1031-5.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

From Amazon’s href="https://read.amazon.com/about" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Kindle Cloud Reader to Apple’s href="http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">integrated cloud allowing extensive Mac device communication, even the most casual user is aware of the power of the cloud. Small and medium sized businesses are slowly adopting cloud hosting in even the most staid markets. Major enterprise cloud solutions have been in development for years and are being deployed at a high rate. But the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/what-might-go-wrong-with-cloud-hosting/">security aspects of the cloud are still being worked on.  Many suggest that hackers are focused on big potential breaches in cloud security. Therefore, it’s increasingly important for hosting companies offering cloud products to anticipate weaknesses in cloud security and address those aggressively.

Customers are also becoming savvier with respect to potential security issues connected with the cloud. As a result, hosting companies are developing stronger communications around this issue in the form of copy, collateral, and training for their sales teams. The need to fight malware and abuse is a major theme affecting all kinds of hosting companies, not just the cloud hosts. Continuing investments and upgrades in this area remains a major theme for hosting companies.

2. Increased Differentiation Among Cloud Providers

The last few years have seen hosts focused in on providing infrastructure needed to support cloud hosting* and rolling out basic services.

In the coming year, prices are likely to increase as providers layer differentiation and additional services on top of existing hosting plans. An important trend is the degree to which individual providers are able to do so in an automated way that minimizes the need for human intervention. The more automated this process is, the higher margins will be on individual accounts. As a consumer, it’s helpful to understand how efficient your potential host’s processes are in this respect – it will save you tremendous amounts of aggravation when an issue does occur.

In addition, cloud providers seeking differentiation will need to find other avenues for communicating their advantages to customers.  Quality customer service is important, but it’s not enough. Instead, cloud hosting providers need to find real points of differentiation and market those effectively. 2012 so far has proved a big year for marketing spending in the hosting industry, and this is likely to continue as hosting companies work to educate the public. Differentiation is especially key as cloud hosting companies compete against Amazon, which has to a certain degree commoditized cloud services.

Example: Atlantic.net is offering ‘VPS Cloud’ service to less-techie hosting users

href="http://www.atlantic.net/vps/vps-vs-cloud.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1031-6.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

* Note: Cloud and VPS are two very different things; href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/vps-hosting-guide/">read our VPS hosting guide to learn more.

3. Increased Reseller Activity And Partnerships

As more big players like Amazon and others move in to the hosting field, it’s growing increasingly important for smaller players to have strong partnerships. Affiliate and reseller relationships are becoming a mainstay of how these businesses profit, as a number of small to medium sized hosting companies become bundlers for the specific services packages needed by small business users and online companies.

Competitive pricing, niche specific approaches, and stellar service will all play a key role in how this growing class of middlemen continues to evolve. Some speculate about whether hosting companies will actually phase out their own infrastructure altogether in favor of acting as straight resellers with lower infrastructure costs and therefore higher margins for Amazon and other larger players.

4. Companies Like Yola And Weebly Are Changing Mass Market Hosting

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1031-3.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1031-4.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

Major hosting and domain registration companies like href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/godaddy" target="_blank">GoDaddy have been offering website building tools for ages. But new players on the scene such as href="https://www.yola.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Yola and href="http://www.weebly.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Weebly are changing the order of things. Instead, the company is positioned around solving a specific need: companies that need a cheap, easy, simple to manage website. They then advertise their easy to use website builder, which is free, and bundle in hosting, domain registration, and other services. But angling their marketing in a specific way, these companies are smartly repackaging hosting for the small business market in a way that’s not overly technical and therefore is accessible. While this is largely a marketing spin, it has directly impacted the way in which consumers purchase hosting and is a trend that bears watching.

5. Changes To Domains Offer Opportunities

Finally, recent changes to the domains available have created additional profit centers for hosts. From registration to hosting, many companies are taking a specific position on hosting non-US extension sites. Gone are the days when every site was either a .com, .net, or .org. Today, users can choose from href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">more than 100 different extensions and experts say hundreds more are on the way. As a consumer, understanding whether a host charges more or offers a specific advantage when hosting less common but popular extensions such as .co and .me is an important step.

Major trends in hosting are continuing to push infrastructure development, the companies that are offering services and how those services are presented to consumers. As consumers, it’s beneficial to understand the dynamics of the industry in order to help you make your best decisions.  We encourage you to check back as we continue to cover major trends and technologies in the space, as well as take a look at our detailed href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-reviews/">hosting reviews to help you make the best choice for hosting your site today.

Page 22 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

How to Create a Killer About Page

alt="How to Create a Killer About Page" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/writing-thumb-500x500_c.jpg" />

Whether you’re a solo-preneur or part of a thousand-strong team, your “About” page is one of the most important pages on your website.

Take a moment to think about your own browsing habits: when you find a new business that looks interesting, title="About WHSR" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/about-us/">the “About” page is usually one of the first places you go to find out more about the organization and its people. As one of the most visited pages on your website, you want to make your “About” page represent the best side of you and your business.

After all, it could mean the difference between an interested reader who eventually becomes a customer, and a bored browser who leaves your website, never to return.

Here are some tips to help you create an “About” page that will keep your visitors hooked.

Ask yourself why your “About” page exists

class="alignright wp-image-5737 border" alt="Article writing guide" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/0110-11.jpg" width="280" height="311" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/0110-11.jpg 350w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/0110-11-269x300.jpg 269w" sizes="(max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px" />

For most businesses, the purpose of the “About” page is to provide more information about the people behind the scenes, revealing a little about who you are and what you do. Even though all readers know logically that real people with their own backgrounds and interests are behind a website or business, it still helps to have  an “About” page to confirm this fact. As with all pages on your web site, the “About” page is a great opportunity to convert readers to clients.

By providing more information about the people involved, readers feel like they know you a little better, which helps create trust and the beginnings of a positive rapport.

Picture your ideal audience

Think of the main readership or audience of your website, and tailor your “About” page with them in mind. It can help to image you’re writing the page especially for a real or fictional reader.

For example, if I’m writing a blog that offers money-saving tips and my target readership is single mothers with one or more children under ten, I might picture a 34-year old woman called Megan, who juggles two part-time jobs and is determined to save money for her son’s college fund. Even though I’ve created Megan out of thin air, picturing her while I’m creating my website’s “About” page will help me keep it relevant and interesting to the people who are most likely to be readers.

Get creative with the headline

This article might be called ‘How to create a killer “About” Page’, but that doesn’t mean it has to be called an “About” page.

title="Headline Writing Skills" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/inbound-marketing/headlines-writing-guides/">Find a headline that’s relevant to your business and how it helps the reader. For example, “How I found happiness, love, and freedom by getting out of debt” is a lot more intriguing than plain “About”. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with using “About” if it fits with the tone and content on the rest of your website, however try exploring a few alternative options that more likely to grab readers’ attention.

Open with value

Writing the first paragraph of an “About” page is challenging, and many people jump straight in with something like “Born in 1978, Chris knew from the age of five that he wanted to be a web designer”.

While that information might be interesting to a handful or readers, you need to treat your “About” page like a newspaper article. Start with the most important information to draw people in, then go into more detail further down the page. The most important information for readers is always what value they can get out of your website or business, so open with this before addressing anything else.

Be personal

After you’ve explained the value readers can get from your site, reveal a little about your personal background, or that of your company. The information should be relevant to the website, including how you got to where you are, and, especially if you’re a solo-preneur, why you think it’s important to solve the particular problem or need that your business solves.

As well as information about who you are, include your picture – if you’re running the website alone – or a picture of your team. Being able to connect a name with a face will help readers feel like they know you a little better – just remember to choose a picture that fits with the rest of the website.

For your references, here are some well-personalized about page.

Joseph Payton

href="http://josephpayton.com/about/">class="border" alt="Sample of About Page" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0507-5.jpg" width="750" />

Bert Timmermans

href="http://www.berttimmermans.com/about-me/">class="border" alt="Sample of About Page" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0507-6.jpg" width="750" />

Molecube

href="http://molecube.ca/">class="border" alt="Sample of About Page" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0507-7.jpg" width="750" />

FT Designer

href="http://ftdesigner.net/">class="border" alt="Sample of About Page" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0507-8.jpg" width="750" />

Justin Delabar

href="http://www.justindelabar.com/about/">class="border" alt="Sample of About Page" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0507-9.jpg" width="750" />

Include contact details

You should include your contact information on your “About” page, and make it clear that customers can contact you. Whether this is an email address, a physical business address or an office phone number, making yourself available for readers to contact you will help build their trust of you or the business you’re writing about.

Include proof

Even if you have statistics, awards, and testimonials elsewhere on your website, it’s still relevant to include them on your “About” page. If you have a high number of subscribers, website visitors, or a large social networking following, sharing these figures can help improve the credibility of your site with new readers. Equally, a testimonial describing a previous customer’s experience with your flagship service or product helps establish the reputation and quality of your brand.

End with an ask

You’ve explained how your website can help readers, revealed information about your background and who you are, and demonstrated proof of your brand’s quality.

To finish, you need to tell readers what you want them to do with that information. Your call to action might involve asking readers to subscribe to your email list, to contact you directly, to share the site on a social network, or to visit other areas of the website, such as the store. Most readers won’t think to do any of these things unless you ask, so do all the thinking for them.

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite

Just because you’ve finished your “About” page doesn’t mean it’s set in stone: you can change it as many times as you want. The first incarnation is unlikely to be perfect, and you can update it as and when you need to. If you find writing an “About” page challenging, you might be tempted to leave it untouched for months, even years. During that time, however, your business is undoubtedly shifting and changing, so use as many opportunities as you can to improve the copy, tighten up the focus, and create the “About” page your business deserves.

Page 24 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

5 Questions to Ask About Your Content Strategy

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In the post Panda and Penguin update world of Google, our href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/featured-articles/why-content-is-king-and-where-to-get-it/">content strategies are more important than ever.  Shady links, automated content scrapers, and other issues have been highlighted by Google as iffy practices that are likely to land you in the sandbox.  “In the sandbox” is an apt analogy for receiving a penalty that pushes you far, far down the Google ranks, or gets you de-indexed altogether.  This means, essentially, that no one will ever find you.

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1212-1.jpg" alt="Content Strategy" width="750" />

Source: href="http://blog.hubspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://blog.hubspot.com/

Whether you rely on your site to make money or to spread the message on something you care about, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-business-ideas/5-reasons-why-content-marketing-will-always-triumph-link-building/">your content is the medium through which you make that happen.  Here are some core questions to ask when evaluating the effectiveness of your current strategy (or outlining a new one to try).  Good content not only helps you effectively serve your readers, it also ensures that search engines value your site and rank it accordingly.

What is a content strategy?

Starting with the more basic assumption, first let’s explore “What is content?”

At its heart, content is information produced, published, and consumed about a particular topic.  Content can be in the written form of blog posts, web copy, or sales letters.  It can be a video, such as a video sales letter or a product information video.  It could be audio, such as a podcast or an interview.

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Every successful online endeavor is driven in large part by significant quantities of high quality content.  The challenge is simple: are you producing the right content, in the right medium, for your audience.  We’ll come back to how to develop a content strategy in just a bit.  But first, let’s take stock of how effective your existing content has been.  Take a few pieces you’ve produced recently and run them through the following evaluation. Here are the core questions to ask:

1. Is your content geared toward your customers….or toward your peers?

One of the most common mistakes we make with our content is writing it for the wrong audience.  Consider: the content that you are developing is for your website and social media channels.  These properties are used to advertise your web design business, and your goal is to reach new clients.

In this instance, articles such as “the latest in vector options” or “how this new plugin makes it easier to design flash pages” might be fascinating for you to research and write, and directly relevant to the work that you do.  But these are going to appeal to your peers, not to your clients. They are going to be looking for things like “how to choose a great web designer,” “what budget is reasonable for building a new website,” and “what new design trends will help you look cutting edge in a crowded landscape.”

Often, we read publications in our space – magazines, blogs, and follow the social media of our peers.  This information leaks into our thought process and inspires the content that we write.  Make sure, though, that every piece of content you publish is advancing your goal and is targeted to the right audience.  Save those other articles mentioned above for industry publications, trade journals, or conferences.

2. Who are your customers – really? 

Once you’ve committed to writing for a specific audience – let’s assume your customers – this leads us to the next question.  Who are your customers, really?  To carry forward the web design analogy, you might say “people who are looking to have a website designed.”

Yet, very few businesses actually serve such a broad niche and those that do often fail.  Most businesses today are much more specialized.  So as you probe further, you realize that you design web sites exclusively for entrepreneurs.  In fact, you tend to specialize in brick and mortar businesses and in helping them establish an online presence.

So, the avatar you’re writing to has become an entrepreneur with a brick and mortar business that’s considering building a website to go online for the first time.  The types of questions and concerns that they need to address – and the resultant content you can create – are suddenly much clearer.  Use this information as the basis for both the type of content that you produce, as well as how you serve it up.

3. What problem in their life are you able to solve (and how can you advance that mission through your content)? 

We often think in terms of our businesses as the products and services we sell – the features.  For example in our web designer analogy, you’re thinking about the design consultation, the branding report, four iterations, unlimited stock imagery, and however many inputs.  As the client, we’re looking for the outcome: a finished website that beautifully represents our brand and communicates our offerings expertly to our market.

So if you’re producing content for a set of clients looking to have a website designed, try to interpret their questions.  One of the core insights for a content strategy is that a mainstream audience often has much more basic questions than you’d anticipate. Specific questions about website design might be:

• How much will this cost?
• How long does it take?
• What will the process look like?
• Who writes the copy?
• Do I have to supply images?
• How do I deal with hosting?
• Can I update the site myself or do I have to pay you to do it?
• How can I connect the site to my social media profiles?

As the concerns become clear, these questions provide specific topics around which to craft your content and take you that much further toward the goal of solving the customer’s problems.

4. Are you harnessing the power of story and the hook? 

Once you’ve established what you’re writing and to whom, there’s a question of how you craft that content.  We live in an age of top 10 lists, 5 apps to help you achieve X, and even this article on 5 questions to ask about a given content strategy.  But the real magic in content, as in copywriting, happens when you capture your reader’s attention.  What’s your hook?  How can you convey the same information using the power of story?

Consider these two introductions: “I first met Bert P. on a rainy afternoon in my Bay Area office.  He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped, dark circles under his eyes, flexing his fingers as though he was tense.  Before I could even offer him a coffee he burst out with “Annie, if I don’t figure out a way to take my business online and start selling the modern way, I’m going to be bankrupt in six months.”

Versus, “Industries are affected by technological evolutions. Some industries progress faster than others. Unfortunately, by the time you wake up and realize that you needed a website, it might be too late.  Recently I had a customer who was within a few months of being bankrupt because all of his customers were moving to competitors with websites.”

Which of these two grabs your attention?  How can you integrate a story, or at least an interesting hook, into the next piece of content you create?

5. Do you have a clear call to action, and/or are you creating a sense of urgency?

Finally, does each piece of content that you write have a clear call to action.  For example, if you are describing a case study of a particular customer, do you close with something along the lines of “if you’re interested in learning more about these services, contact me here.”  Make sure that each piece of content features a clear call to action, to maximize the conversions of your efforts.

So how did you do?  Was your audience clear?  Was the topic you chose targeted to their needs?  Did the piece feature a clear call to action? Did it capture their attention?  Did it solve a real problem and create value for them?  It’s important that each and every piece of content that you produce achieves these things.

How to Build a Content Strategy

Now that you know where you stand with your previous content efforts and have a good sense of the core elements of an effective content strategy, you can move forward with the next step. In order to be a successful content marketer, you need to lay out a plan. It can become too easy to just produce content, to strive to “feed the beast” that requires ever increasing amounts of high quality content in order to meet SEO, sales, and traffic objectives.

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/1212-3.jpg" alt="Content Strategy" />

Instead, I encourage you to take a step back.  Planning out your content strategy will ultimately save you money, cut the time it takes you to achieve your goals, and perhaps yield results that go well beyond your expectations.

1. Be very clear on what you want to achieve

A content strategy is taking you toward a goal.  Define that goal very clearly.  Rather than craft an overarching strategy, decide a series of micro-goals and then determine what it will take to help you achieve those.

Let’s look at an example.  A car dealership may want to increase visibility with overall customers for all of their lines.  But the kind of customer that is looking for information about a pickup truck is unlikely to be interested in the basic information needed to evaluate a Mercedes or BMW.  So the car dealership might set two goals: to raise awareness of their service department that specializes in pickup trucks, as well as raise awareness among area customers about their excellent selection of luxury cars.  Each of these goals can be achieved using an appropriate strategy for each one.

2. Take the time to target content topics and form to the people consuming them

Look at the data you have available to you from existing campaigns to make decisions about your content format. Take stock of your Google Analytics or other website data; look at your email newsletter conversion information.  The information you’re looking to uncover is what kind of content your customers, readers, or target audience like to consume.  If you don’t have historical data, you could always consider evaluating things like general trends, keyword data, and the general queries that bring people to your website to provide insight into what information your clients value most.

3. Ask your customers what they need the most

Consider running a survey to ask your customers and readers what kind of information they need most.  Do they have specific information they are looking for?  Would they like a regular Q&A feature?  Do they consume video more often or prefer reports they can download to Kindle on their phones?  Another option to look at in terms of getting your customers to talk to you is setting up a simple follow up communication to newsletter opt-ins, purchases, and more.  Simply ask what their biggest current concern is, or what kind of information they would like from you give the opportunity to ask for it.

4. Consider internal versus external opportunities

How much of your goal requires you meeting a need with your existing audience, versus how much requires that you expand your reach?  If your goal is related to the first, then certain forms such as a members only area, email outreach campaigns, and a blog series make a lot of sense.  Otherwise, looking for ways to share your content through guest posting, interviews, and freelance writing may be the way to go.

5. Develop a schedule

Once you’ve evaluated these specific components, we recommend choosing a period of time and href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/content-planning-for-2015-how-to-come-up-with-365-days-of-excellent-blogging-ideas/">developing a content schedule to go with it. 3, 6, or 12 months are all logical choices. Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint as they say.  You certainly may achieve outstanding success with a piece that goes viral or hits its mark, but you will be much more successful if you take the long view. Set weekly goals that specify who you’re hoping to reach, what you’ll talk about, the format it’ll take, and where you’ll distribute or publish it.  Once you’ve put together the schedule, test it and make sure there are no holes such as missed opportunities or too much repetition.

If you’ve followed the recommendations in this article, you’ve established clear goals for your content marketing strategy.  You’ve evaluated the success of previous campaigns.  You’ve reviewed relevant data and gotten clear about opportunities, historical patterns, and customer needs that inform your efforts.  And you’ve set out a schedule of how to fulfill the potential of that work over the next several months.  The key factor now is to focus on executing well.  And after you’ve executed, measure your success, update your plan, and execute again.

Happy content marketing!

Page 22 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

All You Need To Know About Domain Names

alt="All You Need To Know About Domain Names" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/dot-com-500x332_c.jpg" />

class="border" alt="Domain Names" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0926-2.jpg" width="750" />

It’s perhaps the most essential part of getting online, buthref="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/domain-tips/"> obtaining a domain name can be a bit more complex than the novice user is accustomed to. The process is dominated by several large companies (for instances href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/godaddy.php" target="_blank">GoDaddy, href="http://www.namecheap.com/" target="_blank">Name Cheap, href="http://www.name.com/" target="_blank">Name, and so on), known as domain registrars, and it’s littered with domain names that span the gamut form corporate to country-based, organizational to multinational. Choosing between these companies, and these domain names, is only the beginning. After the domain has been registered, customers will need to configure it to work with their href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/compare-best-five-hosting/">web hosting plan, their email server, and other aspects of their online presence. All told, it can be a dizzying array of considerations and configurations that the amateur shopper simply can’t manage without a little information beforehand.

The good news is that most domain registrars have been working diligently in recent years to make the registration process far more user-friendly, especially as href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/web-hosting-knowledge/what-is-the-difference-between-a-domain-and-web-hosting">domain ownership and web hosting has gone from a mere niche to a mass consumer market. Combined with a little forethought and proper preparation, obtaining a domain name is exceedingly easy.

And, with the right knowledge, maintaining that domain name’s records and settings will be quite easy over the long-term for well-educated buyers.

The Domain Name Registration Process

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