Lunarpages Hosting Plans

I bet half of the Lunarpages users are now aware that the web host offers a wide range of web tools for webmasters.

These tools, some created in-house by Lunarpages technical personnel while some by Lunarpages partners, are especially useful when it comes to SEO work.

What are the free web tools?

You can check out these free web tools yourself by visiting Lunarpages website.

For reference, here’s the complete list.

• Ping Tool
• Pages Indexed
• Dmoz & Yahoo Directory Checker
• IP Lookup
• Partners
• Link Popularity Checker
• Meta Tag Generator
• Pagerank Checker
• CrazyEgg
• PageMason Web Builder
• Lunarpages Toolbar
• Competitor Analysis
• Position Checker
• Simple Submission
• Deluxe Keyword Density

Are these web tools helpful?

Some of these tools are obsolete nowadays. Simple Submission, for example, is not much needed in current time as Search Engines spiders do not need invitation to visit your website anymore. However, there some of the tools that’s worth mentioning. For example, I found great value in ‘Competitor Analysis’. Competitor Analysis allow you to study your SEO competition closely by checking thru the details, including a website’s word count, image count, link popularity, link count, usage of Flash files and iFrames, as well as keyword density counts. Such metric data is valuable in SEO measures and are useful for any webmasters who wish to rank better in their target SERP.

I’ll be covering more about these free tools from time to time. For the time being, I strongly recommend you to make use of them and build a better search engines optimized website.

I am sinful not to post this earlier at LunarpagesSecretRevealed.com. In mid January 2009, Lunarpages launched its new homepage designs and I think it’s great! Here are some quick print screens for you.

Lunarpages’s all new homepage designs

Webpage linking to additional supporting resources

Webpage introducing Lunarpages community profiles (Facebook, blogs, etc)

Lunarpages free webmaster tools

What’s different with Lunarpages new website?

The new design looks much cleaner and professional and I guess the company website converts better after the change. However, I think it’s a waste to remove the flash presentation that shows customers feedbacks. I think that gives very positive image to the company and should be kept in the new design.

Anyway, according to the officials, the new website design is meant for better functionality. It improves on several things, including

• Better navigation and user experience designs
• Inclusion of additional supporting resources
• Better looking community section for web users
• Easier access to Lunarpages free webmaster tools
• Quick overview on Lunarpages latest hosting offers

So, what do you think about their new website? Have a look yourself.

Ever thought of running your own website online?

Thanks to open source software, free web services, and cheap computer hardware; hosting websites online nowadays are much cheaper and easier. Look around yourself, there are so many bloggers and webmasters around – almost everyone are publishing content online or trying to develop their own cash machines online – why not you?

Although it’s cheap and easy, there are few consideration points that must be taken seriously. Web hosting, for example, is something that can make or break your website. In fact, picking up the right hosting service is the most crucial factor when comes to starting a new website.

5 Quick Tips in Web Hosting Shopping

What I’m going to show you today in this article is about web hosting shopping – a list of 5 tips for web hosting shoppers.

1. Getting the right hosting company

A good hosting company assure smooth and easy web operations. Reading hosting reviews at forums and blogs, checking complaints on Better Business Bureau or other organization, reviewing hosting features and pricing, as well as reading customers feedback are always the must-do steps to filter out the right web hosting firm.

Getting in touch with the customer support of your candidates might be a good suggestion as the quality of customer supports reveal (more or less) the quality of the management. Also, it’s wise to choose a hosting service that runs their own data centers (server centers). This is to ensure that your web host is not one of those small hosting resellers.

2. Dedicated or shared hosting

A shared hosting is cheap and affordable; while your website works safer and faster (theoretically) with dedicated hosting, it cost a lot more. For newbies or mom-n-pop webmaster, shared hosting is often the wiser choice.

In case you’re in dilemma, read further at: When you should take up a dedicated server?

3. Hosting operating system: Windows or Linux?

Web server operating system (OS) is another major consideration point.

Most shared server nowadays are running on Linux operating system due to the fact that Linux is more reliable and cheaper. Windows hosting on the other hand requires extra maintenance work and is much expensive. Windows hosting are normally selected when certain web applications (Microsoft ASP.net for example) are needed.

A point worth noting is that not all hosting firms come with dual OS hosting service. For example both Bluehost and Hostmonster offer only Linux hosting. For readers who wish to setup their website on a Windows hosting, kindly check Lunarpages Windows Hosting offers – they are one of the best in industry.

4. Web Hosting Features

Different hosting firms offer different web hosting package. Before making decision, you must understand what you need for your website.

Answer questions like: How much storage capacity do you need for your hosting server? What are the necessary hosting features – do you need shopping cart? Private SSL? How much bandwidth do you need? Do you plan to host addon domains on the same hosting account? How many MySQL databases are allowed? Does the web host support cgi-bin access? Is web stats report available?

5. Pricing

It’s no secret that there are full of scams and crooks in the hosting industry. Don’t be ripped off by lousy third-class reseller web hosts! Check and compare hosting prices before you hand out your credit card info. Also, a check on the hosting company refund policy is always necessary. Reliable hosting companies normally offer long trial period. Go with these web hosts as you can simply quick and refund if the the hosting company doesn’t suit your needs.

Sidenote: Lunarpages for example, offer a 30 days trial period for all their customers.

Conclusion: Get the right hosting service!

Finding the right hosting service is the first and most important step in building your website. All features that you need for your website should be carefully checked and studied before you make the decision. This is important so that you time spent for all these can be a long term benefit. In conclusion, we should not fall for lousy hosting plan and regret later. Instead, we should invest more time in the beginning to search and study everything that is out there to see which is suitable for us and select depending on our need.

With that, we will be able to build ourselves a good website.

Like it or not, the world of Internet is expanding fast.

Sooner or later, every business will need to have their own websites – just like phone and fax. In case you’re planning to start off a new website, here’re the consideration points to go thru before making any purchase.

1. Website Domain Name

First, you’ll need to pick the right domain name. A website domain name is crucial for your website/business branding. Also, a keyword-riched domain name helps a lot in term of search engines optimization (SEO).

2. Web Hosting

Trust me, you don’t want your visitors to get a blank page or a down site. Your website has to be live 24/7 thus you will need a good web server that offer great server uptime. As for my recommendation, Lunarpages is one of the top rated hosting company that offer stable web hosting with affordable price. They are currently having Fall Promotion thus it’s good for you to check them up.

More details about Lunarpages Fall Promotion.

3. Server OS

Basically your main choice with server operating system will be Windows or Linux. Most hosting companies offer both type of server hosting. However, unless you need to run Windoes applications on your website, it’s crazy to not go with Linux. Linux’s the open source OS and they offer a lot more plugin and web applications for free. Further more, the OS is much stable than Windows.

4. Web Platform/Structure

Another points to run thru would be the content structure on your web platform. Will your website runs on static web pages, or dynamic elements that requires database connection. MySQL is the usual database used for web database; while PHP, ASP, DHTML, AJAX are some of the programming languages used for coding dynamic websites. For the convenience to maintain, you might want to check out some of the CMS software like Joomla, WordPress, or Drupal.

5. eCommerce Features

You’ll need to consider more if you’re planning to process online transaction on your website. What are the necessary application needed for your website? Shopping cart systems? Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and secure sever certificates perhaps? As for Lunarpages, users get a shared secure certs for free but in case you need a private SSL, a dedicated IP and a private certifications are needed!

Wrapping things up

Well, that’s five main thing to consider before starting your website. It’s definitely not an easy job to deploy a web project. To be honest, unless you’re familiar with the technical issues, if not the learning curve down the road is pretty steep.

Fortunately, hosting nowadays are normally equipped with easy-installation scripts like Fantastico. With the help of Fantastico, you’ll get all the web features installed within seconds. Shopping cart, CMS system, photo gallery, wiki addon – it’s definitely the most convenient web tool ever implement online.