The customer portal can be accessed by clicking the “Account Login” tab at the top of every page on the www.letshost.ie website.  Simply enter your email address and password (or click the “Forgot Password” for a reminder).  This will take you to the new Customer Portal.

Once you are logged in, you can manage every aspect of your account from 1 place.  Here is a list of the key features:

• Review, Manage, and Pay for all services related to your account, eg Domains, Hosting, VPS, PCBackup, etc.  You can now extend the period of renewal for all domains (except  fixed term domains such as .co.uk).
• Upgrade your services.  For example you can upgrade (or downgrade) the amount of memory in a VPS, or change the Plan your on, etc
• Activate an SMS message (we love this one!) from the Account Details section, to send a reminder if you ever forget to pay a bill.
• You can cancel any service or domain from the control panel without contacting our support department.
• Network Monitor.  This section of the website details a historical view of all service related issues, as well as displaying the current service status of all our shared hosting servers.
• We have brought all the LetsHost Announcements in to the Customer Portal.  This section is where will will announce new products and services, or changes to accounts, etc.
• We have integrated our Knowledgebase in to the Customer Portal.  All the most popular questions and answers have been added to this list, and you can now search for solutions and answers from this section of the Portal
• Open, review and close all your support requests.  we have integrated our billing system with the Customer Portal, and you can open a new support request, or review all your previous requests.
  • We will be further improving this service going forward, by asking that all customers log their support requests through the Customer Portal.  We will shortly remove the email support address.  This way we can direct your ticket to the appropriate departments, and ask some very brief questions to help us resolve your question as quickly as possible.  We often get emails that do not contain enough information for us to help, so asking customers to manage their support through the Portal will make our “first time fix” much more achievable.
• You can place new orders or check the status of any other orders on your account, all from the Customer Portal.
• We have a new “Bulk Domain Management” systems.  Some customers have a few hundred domains registered with us.  This new feature allows you to manage all domains (or a subset) at once.  This is a great time saver for anyone with more than a handful of domains.

As if that is not enough, there are literally hundreds of improvements and little extras that will improve your overall web hosting experience with LetsHost.  We hope you like the changes!  We understand there is a lot of new features and functions, and not everyone will use every one, but we have tried to make it all as simple as possible with the sole aim of improving our services to you.

We would love your feedback and comments of the new system. If you have any questions or feedback, why not try out the new support system and let us know – we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer.” Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol designed to enable applications to transmit information between each other securely. SSL is the most widely deployed security protocol used today. In today’s Internet focused world, we typically see SSL in use when a web browser needs to securely connect to a web server over the insecure Internet. For example, in the case of a browser, users are alerted to the presence of SSL when the browser displays a padlock. This is the key to the success of SSL, as the users know the site is valid and secure and it is an incredibly simple experience for end users.

How does SSL work?

SSL works by the sharing of encrypted keys, or passwords. The keys are created in pairs, one a public key and one a private key. When the keys are traded in a particular manner between two parties, this protocol assures the parties in communication they are transmitting with one another and not a hacker or phisher. It also assures the data being transmitted is not intercepted by someone else.

What happens when my web browser connects to a secure website? (SSL)

1. The browser requests that the web server identifies itself.

2. The server sends the browser a copy of its SSL cert.

3. The browser checks whether it trusts the SSL cert, and if it does it sends a message to the server.

4. The server sends back a digitally signed acknowledgement to start an SSL encryption session.

5. Encrypted data is now shared between the server and the browser.

SSL’s importance in E-commerce

When a customer visits a store they can see who they are dealing with. They can see the person and the product and make a decision on payment. When a customer visits your website they have no way of knowing who they are dealing with or who owns the ecommerce website from which they are about to buy. They are exposed to all the risks associated with sending data over the internet.

Using an SSL cert on your website enables a web browser (your customer) to communicate securely with your website and assures the customer of these three key issues:

1. That the website really is who it claims to be.

2. That credit card numbers, etc are encrypted and cannot be intercepted.

3. That the data sent and received cannot be tampered with or forged.

LetsHost.ie offer SSL certs from €89.99 + VAT per year. For more information on these GeoTrust SSL certs, please visit http://letshost.ie/hosting/packages/sslcert

Before we go into how you can use Facebook to promote your business, have a look at the following statistics:
- Facebook has more that 500 millions active users
- The average user has 130 friends
- The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
- There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

What the above stats tell you is that there are a huge amount of people connected to Facebook, they spend alot of time on Facebook (both using a traditional computer and while on the move using their mobile devices) and they are connected to many businesses and events and share these with their friends.

So how can you get connected to all these potential customers? First step is to create your business page – this is free to do and you can start off with as little or as much content as you wish, adding in extra content whenever you want. You can then suggest this page to friends and other businesses and if they choose to ‘like’ your page, it will appear on their profile becoming automatically visible to all of their friends. They can then suggest your page to their friends and it continues like that.

The important part comes next – be active with your page. This can be with simple updates to your page, adding Facebook-exclusive promotional codes, creating events (such as a sale/promotion, open days, etc) or actively engaging with other Facebook users. Facebook users, and internet users in general, are fed such a huge amount of information constantly, it is important to be on their screen – ‘out of sight, of of mind!’

What if you have a website already – do you still need a Facebook page also? The answer is ‘yes!’ While your website can be a wealth of  information on your business, products and services you offer etc, this is often largely static content. Facebook, on the other hand, will have a certain amount of information on your business but its point is about being active – active and up to date content and information, getting in contact with customers, generating a buzz around your business. Also, there are more and more options to integrate your Facebook into your website so visitors can easily go from one to the other.

The above is only a introduction on what you can do on Facebook and, more importantly, what Facebook can do for your business. The above alone can generate interest in your business, awareness of the products/services you offer and ultimately bodies through the door and real sales at the end of the day. And that is before you consider spending a penny on paid advertising!

For more statistics on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

To create your own page for free on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?ref_type=sitefooter

However, the effectiveness of an advertising campaign is only as good as the ads.

A powerful ad is one of the most important aspects of your success. And, the secret to a successful ad is your HEADLINE. You only have a split second to grab your targets attention. Your potential customer will most likely scan the ads and only read one if it catches their attention. Write your ads with passion, excitement, and benefits.

When writing your headlines, keep in mind, you only have a few seconds to grab your potential customers’ attention. If your headline doesn’t immediately catch their attention, they’ll simply move on and never return.

Being able to advertise with Google is not at all complicated as new users should find the AdWords pay-per-click platform fairly easy to use.

Those who want to advertise with Google but are new to the world of internet marketing are often afraid of starting because they don’t exactly know what to do or what to expect.

The truth is, the Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising platform is fairly easy to use and can play a very crucial role to the success of any online business or internet marketing campaign

Placing ads on the social networking website Facebook is one of the best opportunities on the Internet for targeted advertising. Because Facebook users provide information about their age, gender, location and interests, you can target your ads directly to the demographic you want to reach.

Affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising where advertisers place campaigns with a potentially large number of small (and large) publishers, whom are only paid media fees when traffic to the advertiser is garnered, and usually upon a specific measurable campaign result (a form, a sale, a sign-up, etc.). Today, this is usually accomplished through contracting with an affiliate network.

There are 3 main types of Advertising Plan
– CPV (Cost Per Visitor) is where advertisers pay for the delivery of a Targeted Visitor to the advertisers website.
– CPV (Cost Per View) is when an advertiser pays for each unique user view of an advertisement or website (usually used with pop-ups, pop-unders and interstitial ads).
– CPC (Cost Per Click) is also known as Pay per click (PPC). Advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website. They do not actually pay for the listing, but only when the listing is clicked on. This system allows advertising specialists to refine searches and gain information about their market. Under the Pay per click pricing system, advertisers pay for the right to be listed under a series of target rich words that direct relevant traffic to their website, and pay only when someone clicks on their listing which links directly to their website. CPC differs from CPV in that each click is paid for regardless of whether the user makes it to the target site.

Error:
ns1.examplehost.com is not authoritative for zone example.ie. Your DNS change has been unsuccessful.
Please verify your DNS entry and try again. If you still get this error, please contact your hosting provider and ask them to set up DNS for your domain, and then try the change again.

What the above error is telling me is that a zone (or DNS record) does not exist for example.ie on the target nameservers. It is a requirement of all .ie domains that a zone exists on the target nameservers prior to actually making the change.

My next step is to contact the owners of the examplehost.com nameservers and request that
a zone be created for example.ie

How do I find out who owns the nameservers? If the nameserver itself is not a give away (dnsireland.com for Lethost nameservers) my first stop would be to go to do an Internet search for it. I could also do a WHOIS lookup on the domain by going to http://whois.domaintools.com and entering dnsireland.com. From the output I can see that this domain is registed by Letshost.

When contacting the owners of the nameservers I tell them the IP address of the server where my website and email are hosted.

e.g.: I have my website hosted with hostingprovider1.ie – IP: 1.2.3.4 <-- A record
I have my emails hosted with hostingprovider2.com - IP 2.4.6.8 <-- MX record

The information I forward on to the owners of examplehost.com is:

Hello,

Regards,
Johnny Customer

Once this zone is created for my domain I can then go back in to my client area and change the nameservers. The response I get this time is “Your DNS has been updated successfully !”

I wait about an hour for these changes to DNS to propagate and then check my site.
To my horror the site still displays a holding page or nothing at all! The reason for this is that changes to the nameservers of a .ie domain will only take effect after one of the IEDR reloads. These reloads occur at 10:00, 12:00, 17:00 & 22:00 7 days a week. For example if I changed my domains nameservers at 14:00 I would have to wait until the next IEDR reload at 17:00 before these changes would take effect.

So how does it work? Every computer on the internet is given a specific number called an IP address that
can uniquely identify that computer on a network. For example letshost.ie will resolve to 78.137.164.40 and google.ie resolves to 209.85.143.104.

DNS effectively acts as the phone directory of the internet mapping computer-readable IP addresses to
human-readable domain names. One could easily argue that the Internet would not have reached such levels of popularity if websites advertised on the internet were of the form http://123.321.12.23. This is just too
hard for humans to remember.

Nameservers hold a lot of information regarding a specific domain such as where to route a connection so
that the webpage is displayed or where to route email.

A domains “A” record governs where a domains website can be found. An A record is entered as an IP address so that when a nameserver is queried it looks down through the “phone book” until it finds the domain and and then redirects the user to the appropriate IP address. The same is true for the MX (mail exchange) record which directs a domains email.

Lets take the domain Letshost.ie as an example…
Letshost.ie uses the nameservers ns1.dnsireland.com & ns2.dnsireland.com
When you type letshost.ie in to your internet browser the .ie of TLD (top level domain) directs the connection the .ie root nameservers (IEDR). The root nameservers show that letshost.ie is currently using the following nameservers:
ns1.dnsireland.com & ns2.dnsireland.com

These nameservers contain the A and MX records (possibly alot more) for letshost.ie
The A record points to where the website is being hosted, 78.137.164.40 in this case.
The MX record routes email to a specific server antispam.letshost.ie which has an IP of 78.137.164.25

As you can see the DNS zone record for letshost.ie can direct traffic to differnt locations depending where the service is located. A subdomain bogota.lethost.ie can be set up and pointed to a server in Bogota to serve Letshosts customers in Colombia for example.

Changes to a domains nameservers will not happen instantly. These changes take time to propagate out to all the internets routers. The algorithms that are used by routers to direct internet traffic pass these changes of IP addresses to each other. It can take up 24hours for a domains to fully propagate throughout the internet.

What are the advantages to having a sitemap?
Well, in addition to making it easier for your visitors to navigate their way around your site, sitemaps also make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your site. This can improve your site’s search engine optimization by making sure that all the pages can be found. This will increase your search engine visibility, as well as your traffic.

And since most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, having a sitemap ensures that search engines and visitors alike can access all the content on your site.

Do you need a sitemap?
Well, it depends on your site. If your site only has one or two pages and hardly any content, then no. You don’t need a sitemap.

However, if your site has multiple pages and lots of content, it definitely won’t hurt to install a sitemap on your site. Here’s a good rule of thumb: Once you get to the point where you are no longer able to include all the links to your pages on your home page, then you need a sitemap.

After all, anything that will help your visitors as well as the search engines navigate your site is a good thing.

Great, Now I want to build a sitemap for my site
Ok you can use the following link to find the best sitemap creator for your site;

http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators

1) The Basics
The greatest invitation you can give a hacker to compromise your blog is a failure to ensure that your WordPress installation is running the most current version. Older versions of WordPress suffer from numerous security vulnerabilities which the more current versions have patched. Upgrading WordPress is a simple process, log in to admin area and select ‘Updates’ from the Dashboard.
At the time of writing you should be running version 3.0.1
It is also important to keep all your plugins and themes up to date. The Updates area of the Dashboard will tell you if there is a newer version available. It is recommended that you regularly check this page to keep on top of the latest releases.
A strong password is a must. The use of special characters will make brute-forcing your password a much less appealing method of attack for a hacker. A simple password can be made quite strong by using numbers to replace letters as shown in the example below. Instead of ‘hosting123′, use ‘H0$t1ng123′

2) The less information you give a hacker the harder his job will be
A default WordPress installation will give away certain information that a hacker can use to formulate a plan of attack against your blog.
WordPress by default broadcasts what version it is running in your pages meta-tags. This information lets a hacker know what attacks your blog is vulnerable to.
The default username is admin. This can be used in conjunction with a brute-force attack that if successful will give a hacker full access to you blog and can do with it what ever they wish.
The default database prefix is wp_. This should be changed to something more unique.
While making the above changes may sound like a daunting task especially to users who may not consider themselves “technical”, there are many plugins that can be downloaded to do the job for you.

3) Security Plugins
WP Security Scan

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/
WP Security Scan will check you WordPress installation for the most common vulnerabilies and give suggestions as to how you can improve your security. It will ensure that your files are using the correct file permissions, remove the version of information from the Meta tags and test the strength of your password. It is recommended that you preform regular security scans of your Wordpress installation.

Login LockDown

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/
This plug-in will record any failed login attempts. It records the IP address of the copmuter used along with a timestamp of every attempt. Too many failed attempts results in that particular IP address being blocked from connecting to your blog.

Stealth Login

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stealth-login/
Change the default login page to one of your choice. The first place a a hacker will attempt to enter a password is the default http://www.exampleblog.com/wp-admin

Image via Wikipedia

Malware is on the increase – and it’s not just your desktop PC that’s at risk of infection.

We all know how vital it is to keep our desktop computers up to date with the latest patches, updates, virus definitions and so on. But many forget that their webserver, and the software that runs on it, could also be prone to exploit and attack by unsavoury cyber-hackers.

Irish website owners need to be vigilant that their sites aren’t being compromised by unscrupulous hackers and malicious code.

We take care of most updates for you

At LetsHost the security of our servers, and your website, is a top priority. We’re constantly vigilant, and follow industry best practice when it comes to our server security set up.

All relevant patches and security updates are applied to all of our server software as soon as they become available, and we stay up-to-date with the latest security news, upcoming threats and solutions, giving you peace of mind.

There are, however, a few steps you, as a hosting customer, can take to help us make your website even more secure.

1. Choose a secure account/FTP password: this is the number one route by which any hosting account is compromised. Use a long enough password (at least eight characters) with a mix of capital and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Don’t make it easy for them.
2. Keep your software up to date: there is a lot of software out there that makes running your website a lot easier – content management systems like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, for example. Periodically these projects will release software updates, many of which contain security patches for vulnerabilities discovered in the code. APPLY THESE UPDATES DILIGENTLY as soon as they’re released to help keep your site secure.
3. Choose third party content wisely: if you choose to share third party content (widgets, ad-placements, etc.) on your site, make sure they are coming from a reputable source, and that you’re happy the code you voluntarily drop into your site is only doing what you expect it to do.
4. Look out for suspicious activity: everything that happens on your webserver is recorded in your server log files… make a habit of scanning them periodically for anything that looks suspicious or out-of-place – such as redirects or links to IP addresses or domains you don’t recognise.
5. Keep an eye on Google Webmaster Tools: if Google indexes your site and finds malicious code it will typically flag the offending pages as potentially dangerous to users. It will also flag those pages in Google Webmaster Tools for the afflicted domain, letting you know which pages on your site are compromised (look under “Diagnostics > Malware”).

What if my site has been hacked?

Having well maintained servers like LetsHost’s, and applying diligent account management practices, will help keep your hosting account malware free, but hacking can still happen.

If it happens to you the best thing to do is to take your site offline as soon as you notice a problem, and follow this advice on removing malware from Google’s Webmaster Central blog, or contact the LetsHost Support team for advice and assistance.

A recent survey of shoppers across Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio by CrossView revealed that almost 4 in 10 of them would elect to receive promotional information via e-mail.

E-mail turned out to be the most popular promotional communications channel amongst US consumers, followed by direct mail (23%), Text Messaging (18%), in store advertising (11%), social media (9%) with newspaper, TV and other traditional channels bringing up the rear with a total of just 3% between them.

Those are pretty telling statistics, and suggest strongly that investing in building a solid opt-in e-mail list and delivering compelling e-mail marketing on a regular basis is still a fantastic way for businesses to connect with consumers.

E-Mail Marketing tools for small businesses

When you’re just starting out it seems easy enough to manage your promotional e-mail using your desktop e-mail client, but that soon gets unwieldy. It’s also difficult to manage industry best practice and comply with anti—spam requirements like double-opt-in and unsubscribe requests.

To market effectively using e-mail you’re going to need dedicated e-mail marketing tools.

Do it yourself e-mail marketing tools

If you’re a LetsHost Complete hosting customer, you already have access to a great free e-mail list manager in your Fantastico script library. Just log in to your control panel, scroll down to Fantastico and look for PHP List.

You can install PHP List on your server for free, and use it to manage all of your e-mail lists and campaigns. Installation and setup is reasonably straightforward, but is a bit more involved than the hosted tools listed below.

You’ll find a detailed article on setting up and configuring PHP List on the webreference.com site.

Hosted e-mail marketing services

These are a great option for small businesses, because all of the technical stuff is taken care of for you. You simply create your account, fill in your details, and start managing your e-mail marketing campaigns.

E-mail services typically offer a free or very low cost trial, so you can try before you buy, and then charge an ongoing annual or monthly fee depending on the volume of e-mail you send in any given month.

Here are a few popular e-mail services you can try to help connect you with your existing customers and give your sales a boost:

Benchmark E-mail: an affordable, feature rich and easy-to-use  system that lets you start small and grows seamlessly with your business. Benchmark offers a free 30 day trial.

AWeber: the e-mail marketing and sequential auto-responder service of choice among many A-List internet marketers, AWeber has everything you need to seamlessly manage multiple e-mail marketing campaigns for your small business. You can sign up for an AWeber account for just $1.

NewsWeaver: Irish e-mail marketing services company NewsWeaver offers another very popular solution focussed on the distribution of high-quality e-mail newsletters, but with all the features necessary for managing comprehensive e-mail marketing campaigns. Newsweaver offers a 30 day free trial.

There are many other services out there, and most of them offer a “try before you buy” free trial.

So give e-mail marketing a whirl, it could be just the thing to boost your small business’s online sales.