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New Layout for Lunarpages.com!

Mitch — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:46:59 +0000

By Mitch “Loves the Layout” Keeler

Have you checked out the new Lunarpages.com layout and design? I must say, it is pretty sleek and stylish! The new interface includes several new and exciting features – so I encourage you all to go check things out!

Some of the new things worth mentioning are:

More professional interface
Easier navigation through all the pages on Lunarpages.com
Inclusion of more great support resources (such as the Wiki!)
The new community section is just amazing!
Easier access to the free webmaster tools!
Check out all the current special offers and deals!

Check it out, and then be sure to leave your comments on the Lunarforums thread on and about the re-design.

Related Tips and Tricks:

40 CSS Layouts to Help with the Basics

Mitch — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:27:17 +0000

By Mitch “Loves Free Things” Keeler

When searching through some of my personal favorite CSS and design resources, I stumbled upon an old favorite of mine – Layout Gala. It might be a ‘bit old, but the advice and layouts here are as good now as they were then.

Via the web site, you can download up to 40 different variations of a basic or skeleton layout. As they state on the site, the main goal of the article was getting the maximum number of layouts based on the same markup, each with valid CSS and HTML, without hacks nor workaround and a good cross-browser compatibility.

Hopefully you will get as much use out of this resource as I have over the years. It comes in great when it comes to fleshing out the basic look and feel of a CSS powered site before getting into all the various design details.

Related Tips and Tricks:

7 Design Sites to Help the Ugly “Make Money Quick!” Crowd

Mitch — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:26:30 +0000

By Mitch “Hates Info-mercial Web Design” Keeler

Why is it that almost every eBook or “great money making deal” that you see out there is always based around a web page that looks like it was built back in 1995? That is a question that has just plauged my mind forever.

As an act of public service – I am going to now donate my time to these poor saps and find them a few basic design tutorials that they can read and learn from (hopefully).

Know of anymore CSS or design magazine-style sites that we could send to the people who keep making these ugly eBook or “make money quick” sites? Share the wealth!

Related Tips and Tricks:

Make Your Web Site More Scannable

Mitch — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 11:58:05 +0000

By Mitch “Highlight the Positives” Keeler

When developing content online, you have to keep this question in mind. Is your web page scannable? Can I quickly scroll over it, speed read and easily pick out the basics I need to know?

In my Google Reader account, I might subscribe to 150 to 200 RSS feeds from different web sites. Now some people might say I’m crazy. How could a person find time to read all that content? The real secret is, I don’t. Most of the time, I am quickly scanning over the text for things that jump out at me.

Nobody spends much time on web sites these days. So, instead of looking at that as a bad thing, think of it instead as a good thing. What you need to do now is to help them get the content they need quicker.

What helps to break up the monotonous long page with just text? Try tossing in some headings and sub headings. Use pictures, blockquotes, shorter paragraphs and formatting. Just make sure you do it all in moderation. Go check out the New York Times web site. Now I can scroll down that just glancing over the headlines in a few seconds. If something pops out at me, I might read a little more.

It might take a while to find the right balance. Check out some other web sites Online and see how they are breaking their web sites up to be more scanable.

Related Tips and Tricks:

Billy Mays on Headline Writing

Mitch — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:17:11 +0000

By Mitch “Billy Mays is an Icon” Keeler

If Billy Mays was here, he would tell you to write a good headline you have to use exiting words, sell yourself and yell a lot get your message across.

So I am here to share with you headline writing, the way I think Billy Mays would want you to do it.

Use Amazing Keywords and Teases!

Learn to use big and important keywords in your titles and headlines. Certain words seem to draw in more interest than others. Do you want to look at the tips or the “top” tips. Do you want a list of tools or a list of “amazing” tools. Look at the world of infomercial advertising and mold it to fit your own needs. You know why those woman’s magazines often have the corniest headlines? Cause they draw in eyeballs. More people are going to read a page titled “The 10 Best Ways to Keep Your Man Happy” rather than “An Discussion of Relationships with Men”.

Don’t Forget to Stay on Message!

Now that you have gotten into the habit of dolling up your headlines with a few more adjitives, it is time for tip number two. Make sure you do your best to stay focused on the content of your page. Don’t tell me you have something that you don’t have, and don’t forget to include something you do have.

Now who says you can’t learn anything from an infomercial?

Related Tips and Tricks:

WordPress Theme Design Contest Series 3 – Vote on Round 7!

Tiara — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:56:29 +0000

by Tiara Rea

Once again, sorry for the late results! Also, this is just a reminder that the WordPress Theme Design contest is now over halfway over! You now only have less than 1 month to turn in your Free WordPress Themes for the chance at $1,000 and 5 years free hosting! New entry submissions close on October 12, but if you turn them in that last day, they are only eligible for our surprise 5 picks and not for weekly community voting.

Any questions, please ask!

Now, onto the voting!!

Web 2.0 by uncle sha

World Business by Autobazar

Hi Tech by Igor Dimev

Brown Stitch by SimplyWP

Frozen Love by n252

Good luck, everyone!!

Related Tips and Tricks:

WordPress Design Contest – Series 2 WINNERS!!!

Amy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:30:41 +0000

By Amy Armitage

We have counted the staff votes and taken the community votes into consideration and …

We have our winners!!

[insert drum roll]

First Prize of $1,000 cash and 5 years web hosting on our Basic Plan

Lilicious by Liza Kliko!!!!!

Congrats Liza :D You really are an amazing designer! Our CEO REALLY loves this one too and so do around 75% of the LP team!

Second Prize of 3 years free hosting + $300 cash

Phunk Attack by Dulce Rose Lada!!!!

They had a very strong community vote and quite a few staff votes. Well done :D

Third Prize of 1 year free hosting + $100 cash

Aero Inspirat by Anne!!

Anne had 2 entries in the final and her work is clean and fresh and very popular with the Lunarpages team, especially our developers.

Honorable Mention

We didn’t plan a 4th prize, however our CEO really liked this design and although it didn’t place for 1st, 2nd or 3rd, he wants to give the designer of Magic TV 1 year of web hosting!

Magic TV by n252

So how do you all claim your cash and free hosting?

Please email affiliates@lunarpages.com and I’ll shoot you back an email with details on how to get your goodies..

BUT WAIT there is MORE!!!

Check back in the next few days for the download page to access all of the free WordPress themes that were in the design contest!

And..

Series 3 should be launched this coming Monday, so make sure to subscribe to our RSS feed!

Any suggestions on how to make series 3 better? TELL US!

Thanks to all the designers who participated. We hope to see you for series 3!

Random Posts

WordPress Series 2 Design Contest – Final 15!

Amy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:51:27 +0000

By Amy Armitage

Voting has closed for the weekly finals and now we are down to the 15 finalists – 10 voted by our community and 5 picks from Lunarpages staff. Voting will run until July 7th and the winners will be announced July 8th!

Unlike last series we do have a policy in place to avoid cheating (proxy votes etc) where the voting results will be considered, however Lunarpages staff will help to decide the final 3 winners.

Just a reminder of the prizes:

First Prize is $1,000 cash and 5 years free hosting on our Basic Plan

Second Prize is 3 years free hosting + $300 cash

Third Prize is 1 year free hosting + $100 cash

Check out the 15 finalists and don’t forget to vote for your favorite!

Round 1 – Mag On Wood by ChiQ Montes

Round 2 – TeamRejoice by Edgardo Canape Jr.

Round 3 – Translucent Dream by Nicki Faulk

Round 4 – Vectorize by Ed Canape!

Round 5 – Phunk Attack by Dulce Rose Lada

Round 6 – Twilight Crown by Nicki Faulk

Round 7 – AutumnLeaves by Edgardo Canape Jr.

Round 8 – Sexy Back by Dulce Rose Lada

Round 9 – Minerva Aqua by Anne

Round 10 – Aero Inspirat by Anne

Lunarpages Pick 1 – Magic TV by n252

Lunarpages Pick 2 – The Grundge by Ophelia Nicholson

Lunarpages Pick 3 – Whitepaper 2.0 Beta by Fath

Lunarpages Pick 4 – Tree Sunset by andrej

Lunarpages Pick 5 – Lilicious by Liza Kliko

Update: Voting has closed. Results will be posted July 8th!

Random Posts

WordPress Theme Design Contest – Vote on Round 6!

Amy — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:34:19 +0000

By Amy Armitage

Our 5 entries for round 6 are:

Twilight Crown by Nicki Faulk

Aakon by Tomas Sramek

Lilicious by Liza Kliko

Butterfly by Mehmet Ozekinci

Moo by n252

Good luck to everyone this week!

Random Posts

WordPress Series 2 Design Contest – Round 2 Results

Tiara — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:11:29 +0000

By Amy Armitage

The winning finalist for round 2 is TeamRejoice by Edgardo Canape Jr.

Well done Edgardo! We hope to see more entries from you.

Random Posts

WordPress Theme Design Contest – Vote on Round 1!

Amy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:25:03 +0000

By Amy Armitage

Round 1 voting for our WordPress design contest (series 2) starts today.

To check out the prizes up for grabs, visit our contest/submission page. Designers can submit as many entries as they want and entries close June 22, 2008 so there is plenty of time to get amongst it!

Below are the 5 themes for round 1. We will take into consideration the community vote and also staff votes and declare a finalist from this round on April 28th based on this week’s votes.

Professor by A. Mignolo

iPhone Theme by indocontest

Dream Home by Ophelia Nicholson

Whitepaper 2.0 Beta by Fath

Mag On Wood by ChiQ Montes

Good luck to our designers ;)

Update: 4/28/2008 – Results will be posted soon!

Related Tips and Tricks:

Using Social Networks to Build Your Brand

Mitch — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:29:13 +0000

By Mitch “The Marketeer” Keeler

There is no doubt in my mind that social networks of all shapes and sizes help, not hurt, you when it comes to building your own name, presence and fan fallowing with your web site. You have your MySpace, your Facebook, your Twitter and more.

I think you should get your name out there anywhere and everywhere you can.

I hate that AT&T commercial where the British-sounding guy is “trying to find the Internet”, the great thing for them though is that even though I hate it I have seen it so many times I have picked up on the commercial’s main purpose. It is for AT&T’s wireless Internet services.

You can use the various social networks in the same way.. hopefully you will be less annoying about it. Join up, toss your links in there and do your best to use the service to build new friendships, followers and fans. I know with my own presence on both MySpace and Facebook – I have entries from my RSS feed going right into my profile so now that group of people I used to go to high school with can now see just about everything I publish. These are eyeballs seeing my content that would not have without spreading out to the social web.

Finally this all comes down to, well what do you have to lose? So maybe you don’t get any followers or dedicated fanboys knocking on your virtual social door. You have gained a few more links back, and you now have a new place where people can find you. Your creating a new path to yourself so if somebody stumbles upon it they know exactly where to look for more. On the other side if things go well, then you might be able to get in better communication and contact with those who like what you do with your own web site and well, having fans is never a bad thing.

Random Posts

Best of April Fools Day (thus far)

Mitch — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:09:11 +0000

By Mitch “THE April Fool” Keeler

I have to say there have been a lot of “creative” stories Online today. Here are some of the best (or maybe the worst depending on how many you have seen) April Fools 2008 stories so far.

I love April Fools Day! Seen any other good ones?

Related Tips and Tricks:

Got Talent? Submit Your Work!

Mitch — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:06:17 +0000

By Mitch “Your Talent Agent” Keeler

If you have a nack for writing or helping other people out please feel free to submit your own work to us. We are looking to feature one customer written article per month in our web hosting newsletter. The only thing that we ask is that the work is your own and does not belong to anybody else. Each month, month after month we will select one to toss into the Newsletter for the month.

Interested? Submit your articles to mitch.keeler@lunarpages.com with the title “LP Newsletter Article Submission”. Also be sure to include your Lunarpages hosted URL and name so that we can give you a shout out for your fabulous work. Starting next month we will feature one customer article per newsletter. If we don’t use your article one month, we will keep it on record and we may use it the next month.

Related Tips and Tricks:

7 Ways to a Better Web Site

Mitch — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:35:19 +0000

By Mitch “Self Helper” Keeler

The question is, “How do I make my web site better?” and the answer could be given to you many different ways by many different people. There are often seven rules I tend to live by when it comes to webmastering, so I thought I would share them with you so that you too can learn from my own trial and error.

1. Look towards your friends – Many people overlook their friends as people who can help with their web site. You can use your friends to write up content for you, hire them for work (design, writing or other) or even just ask them to spread the word around about your online resource.

2. Update on a schedule – You need to find a schedule for updating your web site and stick with it. If your web site it static (not updated often) then you might be able to get away with checking up on things every two weeks or so. If you have a lot of content being posted though, you need to set aside a certain time to work on the web site.

3. Do it right the first time – Don’t half way do things right and then think, “well, if it becomes a problem I can always fix it later” because chances are later will never happen because you’ll find something else to fill your time with. Even if it takes a little more time, doing it right the first go around might save you on time and aggravation later on down the road.

4. Branch out your ideas – Don’t be afraid to branch out to related topics. For an example, if you are running a web site about shoes and you want to add some more content to your web site, then why not talk about shoe laces or those gel thingies you stick in your shoes to make them feel better? Find areas you can branch out in so your idea well never runs dry.

5. Find others like yourself – You can’t run a successful site these days without socializing yourself. Get out there virtually or in the real world and meet others who do the same thing that you do. Talk about how they cover things, how you cover things and you might even build a business relationship that will benefit you later on down the road.

6. Don’t waste time on design – Having a aesthetically pleasing to the eye is a grand idea to be apart of, but if you have all cosmetics and no guts to your web site, then you are left with 9/10 of the Baywatch life guards.

7. Features are nice, but content is king – I feel like I have given this last tip the most, mainly because I would consider it the most important and if you can hit this proverbial nail on the head with your webmastering hammer you don’t need me helping you. Make sure the content you have is not just there to take up space. Make sure it is both quality filled and that somebody is getting something out of it. Check out each of your pages, and if you can’t say that somebody is better off by reading your page then you need to ditch it or re-work it till it is serving a purpose for the average user.

One more suggestion, not on this list, that I can share with you is have a passion for what you are doing. If you are working on a web site of any kind, and you don’t care about it – it will show in your final product. You have to think of your web site as a child of your own, and treat it as such. Take care of it right, and it will grow to become a success, no matter what your final target might be.

Related Tips and Tricks:

5 Tips to Make Your Site Sticky

Mitch — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:56:12 +0000

By Mitch “Tipster” Keeler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Tips and Tricks:

Basics to Blogging

Mitch — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:38:47 +0000

By Mitch “Blogging is my Middle Name” Keeler

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

Blog and Content Management Scripts

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

Best Tools to Blog?

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

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

If neither of these is your cup of tea, the blogging engine that you pick should have a pretty decent editor built in.

What is there to ~~Talk~~ Blog About?

If you just want a place to share information, links and more – then finding your niche might not be so important. If your writing for fame and fortune, then I do have a few tips you might want to take into consideration before you name that blog of yours.

Find something you know about, and write about it!
Get a writing and posting schedule that works best for the free time you have!
For a good post, remember you want quality and not quantity!

Focused blogs, one on a certain genre or topic often do the best, because when people subscribe they know what they are going to get. People subscribe to DownloadSquad.com because they know they are getting cool web site tools and downloads. People subscribe to FirefoxFacts.com because they know they are going to get help with Firefox. Very few people get famous or popular for having blogs just about them.

That is a hard blogging nut to crack into so I wouldn’t try unless you are already well known.

Can You Give Us Some Post or Article Types?

There are lots of post ideas, formats or/or types you can choose from. You have your…

Information Posts – explain something or define it to me.
Top 10 Posts (aka lists!) – give the world a list of your favorite or the best something or another.
How-to – deliver a step by step guide on how to do something
Opinions – write up something that you have a strong opinion about

Many more out there, I know. This should be a good start though.

Final Tips on Blogging for Beginners

Best advice I have for anybody starting to blog is to have fun with it. Don’t treat it like a job, treat it like a hobby. If you treat it like a job, you’ll grow to hate it. Have fun though, and you will think of it more as an exciting distraction to go make a post on your new blog setup here with Lunarpages hosting.

Related Tips and Tricks:

Various Lunar Goodies

Mitch — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:57:15 +0000

By Mitch “Better than a Newspaper” Keeler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Tips and Tricks:

Lunarforums Site of the Month

Mitch — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:36:36 +0000

By Mitch “Forum Plugger” Keeler

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

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

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

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

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

Related Tips and Tricks:

3 Quick Tips for Better Content

Mitch — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:41:43 +0000

By Mitch “Ain’t No Hemingway” Keeler

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

1. Don’t be Afraid of Headlines

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

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

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

3. Inform, then Define

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

Exactly.

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