Top 5 Tips since Google Panda Update

The Google Panda update is well and truly rolled out to UK sites.

Some sites lost a high percentage of their traffic, others were unaffected. To minimise your site exposure to the new rules, consider the following 5 very important tips:

  1. Unique content is more important than ever
  2. Links from low quality directories and blogs are worth less
  3. Quality relevant backlinks are worth more
  4. Quality relevant links from authority sites are worth more
  5. Remove duplicate (and spun) content or risk being de-indexed.

Keep your site within the new rules and your traffic will return and if you were unaffected, significant gains could be realised.

Get your Facebook Pretty URL now!

Facebook is becoming one of the world’s largest search engines. Use it as a way for your page to be found. If you have not set your username (Pretty URL) on Facebook, do it today!

Directing visitors to a business page is so easy with a URL like:

http://www.facebook.com/HostingUK

Some points to consider:

  • Facebook’s usernames will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis.
  • Once you pick a name, it’s yours for life.
  • You don’t necessarily have to use your real name.
  • You won’t be able to get a ‘generic word’ as your username.
  • You’ll have to use at least five characters

While Facebook is encouraging the use of real names, you aren’t limited in that regard. The system will suggest a few available options based on your first and/or last name, but it’ll also provide a blank field in which you can type something completely unrelated.

Each Facebook account gets only one username, and you can never change it. You can’t transfer it to someone else, either. Even if you delete your Facebook account, Facebook says the name won’t go back into the pool.

So go ahead, grab your name before someone else does….

http://www.facebook.com/username

Good luck!

How to Install WordPress in Plesk

As you are reading this, you are probably unaware of how easy it really is to install a web application such as WordPress. It really is just a few button clicks with Plesk.

  1. Login to the Plesk Control Panel
  2. Click on “web hosting”
  3. Make sure “php safe mode” is OFF
  4. Click on “Web Applications”
  5. Click “Install Web Application”
  6. Type “wordpress” and press “Search”
  7. Click “Install”
  8. Agree to the WordPress user license
  9. Select “document root” if you dont want wordpress in a sub directory
  10. Set the WordPress database password
  11. Set the WordPress admin password
  12. Enter your email address for admin notifications
  13. Enter your wordpress page title (can be changed later)
  14. Click “install”
  15. WordPress is now installed!

Ok, so there are 15 items in the list – really, it would have taken you longer to read the list than to install WordPress. Install WordPress now and see how easy it is, you can just delete it afterwards – and that’s just as easy as pressing one button!

For more information about installing web applications see our Hosting FAQ entry “How to Install and Manage Web Applications” or, watch our short video “How to install a Web Application in Plesk”.

Free Web Hosting

We are now offering Free Web Hosting trials (for 1 month) to all new domain name registrations.

The web hosting service will be fully featured (except for SMTP outgoing email – sorry spammers!) however everything else is fully functional and completely FREE of charge.

  • Host 1 website using PHP, HTML or SSI encoding
  • 250MB of FTP Webspace to store your website
  • 1GB Monthly Traffic allowance
  • 1 x mySql Database to use with WordPress, Joomla etc
  • Full DNS Zone Management
  • Comprehensive AwStats or Webalizer visitor statistics

Upgrade to a full account at any time to receive up to1 month additional free hosting at your chosen account level.

SEO For Beginners

Everyone wants to maximise their search engine positioning in the SERPS, but, where do you start on SEO? There is an endless amount of information on SEO so let us help you.

Based on the enquiries we regularly receive from our customers, we have compiled 10 SEO beginner videos to get you started.

Whether you are an absolute beginner or more advanced looking to revise the basics, the following 10 videos will definitely assist your SEO efforts:

    1. What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
    2. How Search Engines Work
    3. SEO Myths Explained
    4. 5 Steps to improve your SEO
    5. How to get your site listed in a few days
    6. How to get free web submissions
    7. How to boost your SERPS rankings
    8. What is Google PageRank?
    9. The importance of keywords
    10. 5 free ways to get SEO traffic

We hope you enjoy these videos and if our objectives are correct, your appetite will be whetted (is that a word?) to move on to more advanced levels in time. World domination is within your grasp!