Many of our clients see the appeal of a hands-off website.

You’ve got a lot of other activities to get through in the running of your business, and you don’t want your website to be another task on the pile. There are many different maintenance requirements that go into a website, and you don’t want to do any of them yourself.

This makes a lot of sense – a fully-managed website allows you to get on with the business of doing business. However, there are some important things you’ll need to manage to make sure your website is a success.

Having a fancy website won’t automatically mean that people turn up. You have to be savvy about marketing and messaging, which are things that your website hosting company do not usually do for you.

Here are some things to consider for your website:

Your messaging

Did you know it takes about 50 milliseconds for visitors to your website to form an opinion of it? Within that flash of time, they want to be able to grasp what your site is about and whether your business might be of interest to them.

Messaging is something that you need to come up with for your business unless you’re also planning on hiring a separate marketing firm to take care of it (even then, they need to know what you’re trying to achieve in order to formulate the right messages!).

A common mistake that businesses make on their websites is trying to have a catchy slogan or interesting design, but not sending a clear message. Website visitors need to know what you do and who you do it for very quickly; otherwise, they may give up and leave.

Great homepage messaging considers the target audience and includes a value proposition for them. This means that you communicate with visitors how what you do or what you sell can make a positive impact on their lives.

You will need to work with your web host to ensure that your website displays the clear messaging that you want to communicate. It’s a good idea to define who your target audience is first, then come up with a few ways to communicate with them. Take a look at websites that do this successfully – for example, in the screenshot below, Evernote does a great job of stating exactly what they do succinctly and immediately.

Make sure your website messaging is clear to visitors Click To Tweet

Your content

Besides the messaging for your website, you need to look deeper at the rest of the content you will provide. Most web hosts will manage the website and put up content for you, but they won’t create the content themselves. You will need to either produce it yourself or hire a content strategist to do it for you.

Why does content matter so much? For starters, it can help to show your company in a good light. Your content can demonstrate your expertise and (should) deliver value for your target audience. When people gain something of value, they also start to trust your business and consider using your services.

Secondly, website content helps with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your website. Basically, the better-optimized your website is, the better it does in terms of search engine ranking. This means that when people type in a search term that is related to your business in Google, your website features somewhere in the results. It takes time to rank highly in results, but having good quality, relevant content helps.

What is “quality content?”

What exactly does “good quality” and “relevant” mean? Your content should answer to the needs of your target audience and be relevant to your business. For example, there would be no point in producing content on an irrelevant topic just because that topic is popular. If your website is for an accountancy service and you’re trying to game the system by putting up “funny cat pictures” it can come back to bite you in the form of being penalized by Google.

Google and the other search engines aim to deliver a quality experience to their users. This means that they want to display the most relevant results first. If you are an accountancy service, something like “how to prepare your small business for tax season” would be much more relevant, and needed by your clients. It’s much better for your business to attract qualified traffic too!

Of course, you can also look at the overall quality of the written content. The best content is technically well-written and delivers an actionable or thought-provoking message, without resorting to writing fluff. Consistency is also important, in terms of tone, quality and frequency, especially if you are producing a blog.

Many business owners look at this and say, “but I don’t have time, I want a hands-off website without having to commit to the content.” If this is you, then it is possible to outsource your content, but you’ll still want to ensure that your messaging and business goals are at the heart of it. You can then get your content person to work directly with your fully-managed web host.

Your marketing

“Build it and they will come” is not a theory that usually works with websites! You still need to work on the marketing side to make sure you get traffic and make your website a success.

A managed website does not include the marketing of that website. This is something that you will need to manage to make your website worthwhile. If you are a bricks-and-mortar operation, then that probably involves online and offline advertising methods.

Here are some examples:

Online marketing

• Build an email list and regularly send out a newsletter or updates.
• Setup pages on social media – be active with posting and engaging.
• Consider paid advertising online. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon or Google advertising.
• Claim your business listing on local directory sites (such as Yelp and Yellow Pages).
• Use content marketing – create blog posts, guest post on other websites or syndicate content.
• Join your local Chamber of Commerce to be featured in their local directory.

Offline marketing

• Include your website on business cards and brochures.
• Sponsor local events.
• Take out paid advertising in newspapers or magazines.
• Send out direct mail campaigns.
  

Testing your website

How do you know which messaging or website layout gets the best results? How do you know overall whether your website is a success?

You can clearly define your target audience, make website layout and feature decisions, and ensure that your messaging and marketing activities seem to be a good fit, but you won’t really know unless you test out different elements of your website.

A/B testing is the most basic form of testing a website. It involves pitting one version (A) against another version (B) and checking if one does significantly better than the other. For example, you might test out headlines, calls to action, web copy, sign-up forms, your checkout flow, layout… there are a huge number of things you can test, so it’s a matter of focusing on what you think might get you the best uplift.

This doesn’t sound very “hands-off” does it? Fortunately, A/B testing is another thing you can outsource. Why would you bother with it? Because optimizing your website can make a huge difference to the results you get. For example, you might find that people weren’t checking out as often due to a long or difficult checkout flow. Testing a different flow may bring better results.

If you do decide to outsource A/B testing, one thing you will need to contribute is your goals for the site. This helps to focus the testing on the areas most likely to impact those goals. You can then work with your web hosting company to make any changes.

Final thoughts

A hands-off website is the ideal situation for many businesses, but it’s important that you still partake in some activities that help your website to be more successful.

When you’re having your site fully managed, you can expect a website that operates well, is designed attractively and has requested changes made by your host. You will still need to get the tasks done that help to draw traffic to your website.

Some of these may be outsourced too, but it’s worth thinking about so that you make the most of your website investment. How will you achieve your desired website goals?

The Right WordPress Theme for Your Website

There are literally tens of thousands of WordPress themes, and at last glance there were over 11,000 just on Themeforest alone. Others like MOJO Marketplace is a huge marketplace for WordPress themes, services and plugins. They currently offer over 1100 WordPress themes themselves.

cRaZy fast websites

Navigating through all those themes can be daunting, yet at the end of the day, every webmaster just wants a website that is easy to find, immediately captures its visitor’s attention, draws them deeper into the site and performs really, really well. Like cRaZy fast.

Who needs extra complexity?

Who wants to trust their non-profit, e-commerce store or online magazine to just any ol’ theme? Not you, not me, not anyone. Websites are already complicated enough without adding another level or dimension of complexity to the process.

Hostirian allows its clients to install the theme of their choice

This is why Hostirian offers robust themes to its web hosting clients in multiple platforms, and allows them to install any theme of their desire.

One of the reasons we allow for the installation of any theme on our BUSINESS and WORDPRESS DEVELOPER PLANS is to give our clients unlimited flexibility in the design of their sites. The collection of themes that are available have been used by millions of webmasters, website developers, photographers, organizations and creative professionals to present a highly sophisticated appearance to their websites, combined with unparalleled functionality.

We recommend Elementor

Can’t find a theme you love or just want to enhance the one you have? We recommend joining over a million users who use Elementor, the #1 WordPress Page Builder.  It’s significantly faster than other site builders as it allows you to design on the front end with immediate, real-time results. It’s also FREE and OPEN SOURCE, and it does not force you to learn code. Need it to display well across multiple devices? It’s underlying source code is compact and optimized for every device and screen.

Use in combination with your favorite theme

Use Elementor with your customized or favorite theme. Elementor allows you to change your themes and still keep all your designs. Elementor can be used to design any page or custom post type on WordPress.

Design is paramount

As we continue to enhance our web development offerings, we’ll look to emerging trends that promise to deliver the design look and style for real value-add and agility for our clients. Why? Design is a paramount element of any website, regardless of the code or method to create it.

Separate your website from the competition

Every website developer and business owner is forced to compete with their rivals to offer a compelling online user experience, where the intuitiveness and aesthetics of their sites favorably separate them from their competition. In essence, your visitors are judging your site against the site they just left.

What about SEO?

Will the design, functionality, aesthetics and value-add content of your website help you in SERPS (search engine results pages)? Absolutely, YES. Fantastic looking sites are the very basis of incredible digital experiences.

Hostirian is here to help

At Hostirian, we are committed to arming our clients with the information and tools they need to develop the best sites possible. We’re definitively excited and looking forward to all the fantastic looking websites our clients are going to build. As always, we’ll continue to scour the Internet looking for new methods to assist our clients to do what they do best, and that is to run successful businesses.

Here’s a networking tip for when you’re out and about spreading the word about your new business. Instead of chatting briefly and exchanging business cards, ask this, “If I were talking to someone who needed your services, what should I say to them?” This gives them the opportunity to give you their 30 second commercial touting their business. Everyone loves to talk about themselves and their business.

Ask for ten of their business cards

Then ask them for 10 of their business cards instead of one. Why? Because it says to them that you’re interested in networking with them, instead of just marketing to them directly – like every other sales rep they’ve ever met. It sets you apart.

Reaching their sphere of influence

When you think about it, everyone has a sphere of influence. When you say word of mouth is the best way to grow your business, how do you get that prospect or client to spread the word about your business? It all starts by showing an interest in their business, providing solutions that help them, and above all – great customer service.

They just said, YES

You’ll never be able to reach their sphere of influence on your own. Ask them for referrals (their sphere of influence) immediately after the sale. They’ve just said YES to your product or service. They know, like and trust you. Take it one step further. Ask them to let the person they just referred to you know that you’ll be calling.

Ask for the referral

All sales reps know that you have to ask for the sale. The same principle applies in networking – you have to ask for the referral.

My gosh, there must be a thousand tutorials on how to set up WordPress, but most of them miss a few key points that can spell trouble down the line. I’ll list a few of the more important things to look for, but this is far from a complete list.

Poorly written themes and plug-ins can wreak havoc on your website

WordPress core files won’t typically cause any issues unless webmasters don’t keep pace with their revisions, but poorly written themes and plug-ins certainly can and frequently do create havoc. Why?

Not all themes and plug-ins are created equally

Thousands of different individuals and vendors have created plug-ins and built custom themes to improve the functionality and look of WordPress websites. Unfortunately, some are better coded than others, and many do not stay current or compatible with updated versions of WordPress (which we all know happens a LOT).

Before you start performing Internet speed tests, check your plug-ins

When you have, for instance 15 plugins installed on your site, and something bizarre kicks up its crazy head, like response time slowing to a crawl, many times it isn’t the server causing this issue, or the speed of your Internet connection. It’s one plug-in or theme throwing rocks as big as boulders at your site.

Easter Egging

How do you know which one is the culprit? More often than not, unless a Google search uncovers a common problem across multiples sites, the way most recommended is to turn off your plug-ins one by one and re-test. It’s called Easter Egg troubleshooting.

Selecting the right plug-in

When you’re analyzing which plug-in to install, you’ll be presented with its version, the author’s name, when it was last updated, what version of WordPress it requires, which version of WordPress that it’s compatible with, how many active installations there are and its average rating from one to five stars based on total reviews.

You’ll also see its description, installation instructions, frequently asked questions (FAQ), screenshots, reviews and a link to its Homepage.

What to look for

Of course, the most important of these is its description. Does it add functionality to your website? From there, I recommend checking when it was last updated and is it compatible with your current version of WordPress.

What do the reviews say?

Read a few of the 5 star reviews AND the 1 star reviews. Sometimes, a one-star review will point out something that completely disqualifies using it on your site. Some examples:

• TERRIBLE SUPPORT
• Extremely slows down MySQL
• Or the plugin was the main problem on my site.

Don’t forget to check how long ago that review was written. Maybe that issue was addressed in later revisions.

Themes, on the other hand, are a different breed

Just on Themeforest alone, there are over 11 thousand WordPress themes ranging in price from free to over sixty dollars. Most of the themes display their version numbers, and are updated just like WordPress from time to time.

Take note of total sales and comments

Some themes have sold thousands of times, but that doesn’t mean your website will look like any of the others. Most themes are highly customizable.

What you’ll need to look for is whether that theme is high resolution, is it widget ready, what browsers is it compatible with, what software versions of WordPress is it compatible with, what plugins will it work with, is it mobile responsive, is it well documented and what files are included.

Most themes have Live Previews

Absolutely look at some of your prospective themes in live preview mode. Be aware though that the images on that demo are generally not included and only serve as placeholders for presentation purposes.

If on ThemeForest, was the author of that theme an Elite Author

Has that author’s work ever been featured? And do they offer extended support, and if so, at what price? Does that author respond to support requests quickly and are his answers professional and value-add.

Don’t forget categories of themes

Thousands of WordPress themes have been written in different categories such as corporate, retail, entertainment, education, wedding and technology. You name it – there’s a category for it.

Pitfalls – smitfalls! You’ve got this covered now.

PS: Many of the issues created by coders can be overcome by simply hosting your website on an insanely fast web server, like Hostirian’s PCIe NVMe servers. They’re six times faster than SSD servers and many times faster than the server you’re probably using now.

Are you confused when presented with which operating system to choose when selecting a web hosting provider’s hosting packages? You’re not alone. And no, it doesn’t matter what operating system you have on your desktop or work station – they don’t have to match your hosting platform. You can be using Windows 7 on your desktop and Linux on your web server. So what are the key guidelines to select one versus the other?

Applications make the difference

On a shared web hosting platform, both operating systems are normally priced the same. If you’re leasing a dedicated server though, Linux is open source (free) and Windows is proprietary to Microsoft applications that require license fees. If you need services like Active Server Pages (ASP), MSSQL, MS Access, Visual Basic or remote desktop, these applications are Windows specific.

Are Linux servers more secure?

I see this brought up quite often in comparisons and the answers are all over the board. Very simply, the answer is NO. Both operating systems can be locked down tight. What I generally see are providers that only offer Linux platforms stating that Linux is preferred.  Both support a wide range of software applications, languages and databases.

Control panels for operating systems

Control panels do vary by operating system platforms with cPanel frequently offered for Linux versus Plesk for Windows. Of the two, cPanel is more popular, but both are comprehensive.

CentOS is popular, but there are other flavors

There are different flavors of each operating system: with Linux; CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu and others, and with Windows; 2016 Standard and Data Center Edition.

My recommendation is to match your specific requirements to the Operating System that best fits your website. If in doubt, call us – 800-615-9349. We can help.

Test your website today to get a free report instantly

We offer a simple little tool that has helped millions of people improve their online presence by auditing more than 70 factors laid out by the major search engines. It starts with an overall score of your website and the number of issues it uncovers. The analysis is date and time stamped so you can set a baseline for improvement.

Busy schedule?

This analysis can be performed in less than a couple of minutes and then downloaded as a PDF for viewing at a later date, by one of your associates or if you need help, we’ll review the analysis with you FREE of charge (no obligation whatsoever).

Your site will be ranked on:

• On-Page SEO
• Responsiveness
• Page Speed
• Links

About Hostirian

Hostirian has been helping businesses with IT solutions for over 20 years. Offering this FREE resource is just one way we push the envelope to help businesses do what they do best, and that is to run successful online businesses.

Everyone seems to agree that uptime is important and that the faster a visitor can download a website, the more apt they are to stick around, increasing time-on-site averages AND conversion rates.

Reliability? No one likes their online presence to go offline, for ANY amount of time. After all, a website is the face of a business online, so why do so many settle for less?

Why port speed, RAM and processing power aren’t all that!  

Well, actually they are all that, but hundreds of millions of websites are still powered by spinning hard disk drives and SATA SSDs. Websites, after all, are still just a compilation of ones and zeroes, and how well your website performs depends on how quickly those ones and zeroes are processed. The weak link is typically the storage device.

PCIe NVMe to the rescue

So what is PCIe NVMe and why should it matter to you? What their synonyms stand for is inconsequential, but what this technology does in the background for your website is incredible.

By now, most folks know that any type of SSD outperforms a hard disk drive (HDD). A PCIe NVMe SSD outperforms SATA SSDs by a ratio of six to one. You thought SATA SSD was fast?! PCIe NVMe SSD screams, or as we like to say, it’s insanely fast. So I ask you again, “WHY SETTLE FOR LESS?” Your website’s performance is what sets you apart from your competition.

State-of-the-art servers are one of the many ways that Hostirian helps you on the OTHER side.

We heavily invest in both technology and in our staff so that our clients enjoy the best possible hosting experience available on the Web. I’m sure you’ve heard the term, positive in – positive out.

The culture we promote and commit ourselves to is complete customer satisfaction. If that means offering the fastest freak’n servers on the Internet to our clients, that’s where we’re going. If that means scheduling after-hours training so new services are smoothly implemented and issues are resolved quickly, that’s Hostirian. We are here to help YOU.

WordPress and Joomla are both content management systems, and while both have been around for years, WordPress has surged ahead of Joomla in popularity and add-on functionality.

Look at the numbers. With nearly 2 billion (that’s billion with a B) sites online, WordPress controls 30% of those, and approximately 60% of sites built with content management systems. Where is Joomla? In second place at 7%, followed by Drupal at 5%.

Both are available for quick installs via Softaculous.

Softaculous is a great auto-installer having 446 great scripts, 1115 PHP Classes and they are still adding more. These scripts cover most of the uses a business owner or entrepreneur could ever use. It covers a wide array of Categories so that everyone can find just the right script to power their website.

Why Joomla? How will it help your business?

Joomla is an open source platform on which Web sites and applications can be created. It is a content management system (CMS) which connects your site to a MySQLi, MySQL, or PostgreSQL database in order to make content management and delivery easier.

Joomla 4 new features:

• Bootstrap 4 Integration
• More friendly Back-end User Interface
• Coding improvements
• New front-end template and back-end template
• New Media manager
• Simplified installation process
• Faster page loading times
• Features to improve Search Engine Optimization

Why we recommend WordPress.

WordPress was designed for everyone, not just developers. That’s HUGE! You don’t have to be tech-savvy to use it, so forget stressing over learning code. Do you want the ability to tweak your website after its initial development? Compared to Joomla, WordPress shines in this department. It’s user friendly, it’s versatile and it flat out works. One word of caution – hackers love WordPress, so keep those themes and plugins up-to-date, and install some sort of security software.

 

WordPress 4.9.8 Features

The talk of the day is Gutenberg (a new editing environment) and while it still doesn’t hold ground against Elementor, prepare yourself as it is soon to become part of the WordPress core. Gutenberg lays the groundwork for incredibly exciting developments.

Gutenberg is at stage one of a three-pronged roll-out strategy. First, WordPress will get a redeveloped editor, and after that the project will focus on page templates, then in the final stage it will become a full site customizer. As you can imagine, this will empower developers with endless possibilities.

I had just installed a nifty firewall I found on the Internet, and dang it, I locked myself out of my server. OK, those weren’t the exact words I used, but you get the picture. My name is Bob (real name hidden for fear of ridicule) and I had just leased an insanely fast NVMe server from Hostirian.

Fortunately, they offer IP KVM which allowed me to remotely disable the firewall and gain access to my server again. Whew!! Managing a server is so much easier when you have some great tools at your disposal.

For more information about Hostirian’s dedicated servers, click here.

Open source software, like the scripts offered by Softaculous, is widely used by companies in a broad range of industries from retail to wholesale, and from finance to automotive. Why? Obviously free helps, but many of these scripts are used by millions of businesses for reasons other than cost. They improve productivity, workflow and a myriad of assorted value-add functionalities across multiple industries.

Over 400 free scripts are available via Softaculous

No, you don’t need to know any code to install these scripts. Softaculous scripts can typically be installed with just one click. We obviously can’t review 400+ scripts here, but we will discuss a couple of popular scripts that are designed to make your life much easier (more in future newsletters).

If you’d like a full list of the scripts that are available via Softaculous, head on over to our Cloud Website page. We’ve divided these scripts into categories like e-commerce, blogs, gaming, ad management and others. Each of these categories can be expanded to display the scripts that are in that category. Each of those is linked to extensive information about that script, including reviews, screenshots, ratings and features.

First up, an e-Commerce script called PrestaShop

“The PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers.”

We’ve selected to feature PrestaShop based on it’s popularity and rating, as it has scored 4.52 stars out of a possible 5 from 2452 voters. What we hear quite frequently from entrepreneurs/solopreneurs are queries about launching online stores. What differentiates PrestaShop from other shopping programs is its front and back office features. 

Of course, if you’re selling to a local market, you wouldn’t need unlimited languages and dialects, but good to know that’s available. Being pre-configured for PayPal is huge, simply because PayPal is a highly recognizable payment solution trusted by millions worldwide.

On the flip side, you’ll likely have to purchase several (often expensive) add-on modules to integrate different software programs to add functionality to Prestashop. If you have limited tech knowledge, you might consider investing in a web developer to help you through the rough spots. The good news is that once it’s set up, day-to-day operations are a breeze.

Next up is a customer support script called osTicket

“osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. It seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email and web-based forms into a simple easy to use multi-user web interface. Easily manage, organize and archive all your support requests and responses in one place while providing your clients with accountability and responsiveness they deserve.

osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, and easy to setup and use. The best part is, it’s completely free.”

osTicket ranks 4.6 stars out of 5 based on 225 voters, essentially because it simply works AND it’s free.

Its features:

One review by a Guest says, “It just worked out of the box. It does all the basics extremely well and is highly stable and reliable. I have a small support team (including contractors) and this product does all the things I need and does them very nicely. Highly recommend you give it a try, I am confident you won’t be disappointed.”

Other than being FREE which obviously helps keep your cost down, it offers enough features to run a decent sized business support department successfully.