web-hosting-newsletter.com » Issue 20 – May 2009

May 2009 – Spring Hosting Fling

Mitch Keeler — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:11:41 +0000

May is here, which means it is time for us to roll out another edition of the Lunarpages newsletter. We have been working hard on this one to not only deliver you that latest and greatest news about Lunarpages and the hosting plans we provide but also to provide even more of the tools, information and fun you have come to expect from us. Also, happy belated Mother’s Day to all the lunar-moms out there!

Here is what we have lined up for you this month:

May your month of May be an awesome one indeed. If there is anything else you would like to see us cover in next month’s newsletter, or you would like to give us kudos on this month’s selection of articles and posts – please let us know in the comments.

LunarNews: May 2009

TiaraRea — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:10:54 +0000

Well, you know it’s May when all the flowers are in bloom and the weather feels like summer. Here in California we’ve had some extremely hot days (I think we had a couple record-breakers recently!), but overall it’s incredibly nice to get back to warm weather.

In the world of all things Lunarpages, here’s the low down for May 2009:

New $75 Commissions!

So how would you like $75 in your pocket? I’m sure you’re wondering how it’s all possible, but it’s actually incredibly easy! Just signup for our Affiliate Program, refer a friend, family member, or even a complete stranger to the Lunarpages Quicksite Hosting Plan, and get $75 every time you do so! The Affiliate Program also pays $65 per sale for Shared Hosting Sales (Basic, Business, Windows, and VPS) and $180 per sale for Dedicated Server Hosting sales.

Check out our featured article on More Ways to Make Money with Lunarpages for the best tips on promoting this amazing web hosting plan, and download the Quicksite Hosting banners to start earning commissions today!

End of $4.95 Spring Special for 12 and 24 Month Plans

We hate to say it, but the time has finally come to end the $4.95 Spring Special for 12 and 24 month plans. But there is good news, too!! Since we had such an incredible success with our $4.95/month price, we have decided to extend this as a special deal for longer contracts. So, if you would like to take advantage of the $4.95/month hosting offer, you can signup for a 5-year billing cycle and still receive this phenomenal deal!

Lunarpages Website of the Month April 2009

Congratulations to My Design & Scrap, one of the most interested sites of the month I’ve seen in a while! The reason this website is so interesting to us here at Lunarpages is because most of us had never heard of “digiscrapping” before. Now before you go thinking it is the newest dance craze sweeping the nation, I will fill you in–digiscrapping is digital scrapbook design! Definitely worth a look to see some of the amazing creations this digiscrapper has come up with.

Want to vote for the next Website of the Month? Visit the Site of the Month forum at Lunarforums.com for more information.

Getting to Know Our Favorite Affiliate Guru

Mitch Keeler — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:09:46 +0000

Author: Mitch Keeler

This month we have somebody new stepping out from behind the support ticket and help desk, taking time off from working hard at Lunarpages to answer some questions. Tiara Rea is the Affiliate Program Manager for Lunarpages. Not only is she an affiliate mastermind, but also she has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. How is that for impressive? As somebody who has trained under her I can tell you first hand, she is more than knowledgeable in the world of affiliates and is by far one of the most interesting people I have had the privilege to meet while working with Lunarpages. With that said, let us get on to the first question…

To our Lunarpages Affiliates, you are a friendly face and helpful hand; however to other hosting clients, the appendage metaphor might not be the best to use, since they are not as familiar with you.

Could you let us know your title and day to day roles here at Lunarpages?

Yep, I am the Affiliate Program Manager here at Lunarpages, which means I handle most of the affiliate-related inquiries our customers and affiliates have. So if you want to refer your friends to Lunarpages and make $65-180 for it, you’ll probably end up speaking with me! I also take a lot of business development emails, write for our Web Hosting Newsletter, and do most of the copywriting and editing for our websites, too. But the Affiliate Department is definitely my favorite aspect of my job, since it keeps me in touch with our customers and affiliates. I love helping them earn money!

So, in a nutshell, you help people make more money. You must deal with a lot of happy people! What would you say is the biggest misconception with affiliate plans, in general?

There are two big misconceptions, actually: 1) That affiliate programs are “get rich quick schemes” and 2) that they are only for huge websites or corporations.

1) You would be surprised by how many customers disregard the Affiliate Program because they think it’s some kind of scheme or that it costs money. I love their surprise when I tell them, “No, there is absolutely no cost, and if you refer 4 people to Lunarpages, that’s at least a free $260 in your pocket!” There’s no scheme, no cost, and it’s EASY. That’s the best part! It’s not a scheme or some kind of pyramid trap—if you refer a customer our way, you earn $65-180 for that sale. No hoops, no schemes, no tricks; just another way to help you make some extra cash.

2) Our Affiliate Program works for the stay-at-home mom referring her friends and family or the Business Tycoon referring partners, colleagues, and clients. We have about 80,000 affiliates, and they range from those who refer a couple people every year to those who refer a couple every day. It all varies, but it’s all free money in the long run, so there are phenomenal benefits to joining.

In the past few months, we have talked with a lot of remotes, but you actually get to report to the office! Give me some inside dirt, and feel free to change names to protect the innocent.

Our office in Anaheim is SO NICE!! I can’t even describe how great it is to come into work here every day. Oh, but you want the dirt… Hmm… Does an interoffice water-balloon fight count as dishing the dirt? Nah, it’s fantastic here. Not that I don’t envy remotes, who can “go to work” in their PJs, though…

What do you do when you’re not helping people make more money?

I love to write, play my guitar, knit, visit Disneyland, and nerd out with my roommates over our obsession with Harry Potter. Really, we’d all rather sit around discussing Dumbledore’s intentions in Half-Blood Prince than go out clubbing or something (I know: Nerd Alert!). Oh, and I love the beach!! It’s one of the best things about living in California.

Do you have any overlooked affiliate-related tips you could share?

For small affiliates who may only refer a handful of customers every year, I’d recommend putting a link to your Affiliate Tracking URL on your website. You would be surprised at how much strangers may value your recommendation for hosting.

For medium-sized affiliates who refer a couple customers every month, if you haven’t gotten in touch with me yet, you should definitely do so. I am always willing to help you make the jump from medium to big! Also, are you promoting all of our plans? If not, look into Quicksite ($75/sale) and Dedicated Hosting ($180/sale) to boost your income.

And for big affiliates, branching out to new niches is always good. Keeping in touch with me at all times also ensures we are working hand-in-hand to keep your income rocking.

When they write the book and then later make the movie (which is nothing like the book) about your life, what is one thing about you that you hope they get right?

My love for music, writing, and animals are all really important aspects of my personality. But also I hope in the movie they can capture the nerdy parts of my life too. I would my future Hollywood director would choose someone cool and exotic like Thora Birch to play me as well.

Do you have any projects or web sites outside of Lunarpages?

I have a personal blog where I keep in touch with my friends, and I also do a lot of writing for the magazine PingZine. I’m also about to go back to school to take some additional creative writing and music classes, which I am extremely excited about!

How did you get started in the wild and wacky web hosting world?

Like most of the people in this industry, it was a complete accident. I had just moved to California and was applying at Lunarpages for a Customer Service position. Amy Armitage, my fantastic colleague here at Lunarpages, actually stole me from the CSR position I was applying for and asked me to join her team instead. My responsibilities just grew from there, from minor affiliate stuff to Sales calls and now to developing and managing the Affiliate Program; it’s just all fantastic. I know everyone we interview says so, but Lunarpages really is an awesome place to work.

If you were not involved in the web hosting business, where might you be?

I think I would be teaching in a creative writing or music setting, or writing a really fantastic novel or book of poetry. I do a lot of writing and music on the side, so it would definitely involve one of those aspects.

Why should average customer come talk with you about signing up with the Lunarpages Affiliate Program?

Because it’s easy, it’s 100% free, and you can earn big bucks just by referring friends, family members, coworkers, and even strangers. Give me a call or shoot me an email and I’d be pleased to help you get started earning $65-180 per sale! 877-586-2772 x4 or affiliate@lunarpages.com.

There you have it, one on one with our master of the affiliates, Tiara Rea! Be sure to check out some of the past Lunarpages interviews we have done too, for more information on the people that are helping you out each and every day.

Test Multiple CSS Font Designs with Ease!

Mitch Keeler — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:08:03 +0000

Author: Mitch Keeler

Need to compare fonts before you make that next big change to your web site’s design? Font Tester is a web site that will allow you to do that online and for free. With it, it is easy to preview and compare different font views side by side with various CSS font styles applied to them.

For example, here is the Tahoma font in the small size compared to the Comic Sans font set to a medium size.

You can also change things like the line height, font style, letter spacing, direction and more. I honestly thing you could possibly spend hours here just customizing your text to meet your web site’s design needs.

Once you are done, you can click on the “Get CSS Code” link to grab the CSS code you will need to get the same look and feel on your own design. An extremely simple to use tool that should help save time for anybody who designs web sites, Font Tester is an online tool everybody should have bookmarked.

Lunarpages Guide to Twitter

Mitch Keeler — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:07:14 +0000

Author: Mitch Keeler

As the resident tweeter for Lunarpages, I have learned a lot about this service over the years. At first glance, I thought it was kind of lame. I mean, how much can you do in 140 characters? However with time, it has become a useful and addictive part of my day to day life. So what is Twitter, what is it good for and how can you get it to working for you?

What is Twitter Good For?

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, gives you an easy way to share short messages with your friends or with the world. It helps you stay connected in real-time with people all around the world. Many people use it to talk to their friends. Others might use it to share something they just produced. The way you use Twitter is totally up to you. You can get sign up for Twitter here.

Here is some Twitter lingo you might want to become familiar with:

Twitter – The name of the service
Twittering – The act of posting on Twitter
Tweet – A message on Twitter
RT (or Re-Tweet) – When you copy somebody else’s message and post it on your own Twitter profile

How Can Twitter Help You and Your Brand?

Now, this aspect to Twitter is something that is near and dear to my heart. I love finding out how to use tools in ways to benefit my various web projects. Who doesn’t, right? For many, Twitter is a way to pass out a link to something you just did. For example, I might post this article on Twitter. That way the people following me on Twitter will see it, come back and read. The same could be said for videos you might produce, audio you might upload, or any other media content creation you do. Twitter acts as a great way to get the word out.

Tweeting Tips!

When interacting on Twitter, remember these tips:

Don’t follow hundreds of people, without having one follower yourself. This is often seen as a form of spam. Honestly, if you saw somebody was following 300 people and only had one person following him, would you think that person is very interesting? I think not.

Don’t over-tweet yourself. As addicting as Twitter might be, you don’t want to spam those people who follow you with a lot of your own replies back to other tweets on Twitter. If you want to reply to tweets, try to divide your replies up throughout the day with some useful unique tweets of your own in-between.

When replying to a tweet, remember other people are watching. I often see replies they say, @user thanks! and that is it. Thanks for what? What did you do, and why do you want to share this with me? When replying, put something in your reply that keeps the conversation in context. As an example, @user thanks for your positive feedback about my web site! Then, remember to toss a link in there too, so others can see how great your web site is.

Resources to Help You Become a Better Tweeter…

Looking for another way (other than that Twitter web site) to send your tweets? There are a number of different applications out there to help. Personally I like Twhirl and TweetDeck. However, you can find tons of clients, widget and more on the Twitter downloads page.

Also, don’t forget to follow your favorite web host, once you get that Twitter account setup. You can find us @lunarpages. See you there!

SEO Links of the Day

Mitch Keeler — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:06:25 +0000

Author: Mitch Keeler

From the Lunarforums, we have yet another great collection of links. This month, the idea and inspiration is search engine optimization (otherwise known as SEO). Collected for your enjoyment here are some of the best resources, tools and articles on the topic.

Here are all of the SEO-inspired links of the day we collected.

As you can see, there is more search engine optimization help there than you can shake a stick at. Search engine optimization is one of those things that are easy to do but tough to master. The best thing you can do is keep learning about it, try out all the best suggestions and then stick with what works out best for your situation.