Affordable Web Hosting For Bloggers

CC 2.0 BY - jamisonjudd

I was on a quest to find affordable web hosting for bloggers, and I certainly believe I found it. I have been a happy midPhase customer for about a year and a half now. Because of how pleased I’ve been with them and in the spirit of full disclosure, I’d like to point out that midPhase also offers hosting services through ANHosting, IK2.net, VPS.net, and WestHost.com and I am part of their affiliate program.

I’m not a corporate shill and I won’t recommend a product or service I know nothing about. I don’t become an affiliate for just any company that offers an affiliate program. When a company provides me with exemplary service, I believe I have an obligation to share that experience with others. Becoming an affiliate is a great way to do that.

I have been very happy with the level of service provided by midPhase. They’ve given me a very reliable and unusually affordable web hosting solution. I host several domains and have developed several separate web properties using each of my two accounts. The tools provided by midPhase, which I can only assume are similar to the tools they provide through their other web hosting properties, make taking complete control over your online presence a breeze.

Controlling DNS settings, setting up e-mail accounts, creating databases, managing FTP accounts and much, much more can all be done using the cPanel access provided by midPhase. If you don’t know what cPanel is, well…you don’t know how much time and frustration you will save by having one. Before settling on any web host, make sure they provide a cPanel.

Knowing What To Look For From A Cheap Web Host

When I set out on my quest to find a cheap web host, I had no idea what to look for. What I did know was that I was ready to walk away from the nightmare that is the GoDaddy website and never host with them again. No offense, GoDaddy…just not a fan of your website or tools, but plenty of other people like ‘em just fine. No need for you to worry. My goal from the start was to find cheap web hosting that doesn’t suck.

I was starting a new blog, so I knew I needed a host that supported WordPress – but I didn’t want to be stuck with only WordPress. I wanted a flexible, functional AND cheap web host – was I asking way too much? After my experience with midPhase, I’d have to say, “no”. It seems that a flexible, functional AND cheap web host is exactly what I found.

I asked around and ended up with a laundry list of features to check for when looking at different hosts. I didn’t really understand some of the “techie-type” recommendations then. Those making the recommendations were far more experienced bloggers than I and before I knew it, the checklist had grown to include several very specific requirements. Accepting their advice gratefully, I made sure to add cPanel and Fantastico to the “must include” checklist – both of which were mentioned time & time again.

Major things to take into consideration include:

Storage Space
Bandwidth
MySQL Databases Allowed
How Many Domains Can Be Hosted
Subdomains
cPanel Access – midPhase cPanel demo (username: cpdemo and password: cpaneldemo)
Fantastico
PHP Support
WordPress Support
Ruby on Rails Support

Affordable Web Host With Lots of Features

midPhase is an affordable web host that doesn’t sacrifice in the service or support departments. I have had very few issues over the past year an a half. I can recall on one occasion I was unable to access my database, but resolving the issue required nothing more than an e-mail to their customer service department and was completely resolved in a matter of minutes.

With plans starting at less than $3 a month, I’d challenge you to find a less expensive web hosting solution that provides what midPhase provides. Their middle of the road Linux hosting solution, “Unlimited” – which is what I use, is available for as little as $3.48 per month. midPhase is also currently offering a special on their “Business” hosting package for just $2.24 a month – that price was available as of August 19th, 2009 and may change at any time…so hurry! Seriously, that’s an awesome deal. I’m thinking about setting up a third account even though I don’t really need it at this point. I’m sure I’d put it to use for something, right?

I bet you’re wondering what, specifically, is included with midPhase hosting accounts, well…here are a few of the highlights of the “Unlimited” and “Business” plans:

Web Space: Unlimited
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Number of Websites: Unlimited
MySQL Databases: Unlimited

Includes:
PHP5
Ruby on Rails
WordPress Support
Fantastico
Subdomains
SSH Access
SSL Secure Website Access, and much more!

Here’s a run down of the three shared hosting options offered by midPhase, as well as a detailed comparison of features and services:

*Image source: midPhase information page at < http://www.midphase.com/web-hosting/linux-hosting.php >; prices are accurate as of August 19th, 2009 but may change at any time and without warning.

I have two midPhase hosting accounts, both of which offer the ability to host an unlimited number of domains, create an unlimited number of MySQL databases and offers unlimited storage and bandwidth. It is the best shared web hosting value I have come across to date. The cPanel alone – yes, there’s that odd word again – is an invaluable tool for controlling everything from your DNS administration to e-mail accounts to creating & maintaining MySQL databases.

The cPanel even has a built in code & text editors that allow changes to be made to files – like .htaccess, robots.txt, etc. – directly on the server, rather than having to download the files, make the necessary changes and then upload them again. You may not appreciate what that means at the moment, but if you spend much time maintaining your own blog or site you will soon enough. If someone else handles all that “technical” stuff for you, they should know what that means and will be grateful that you’ve taken those details into consideration in making your hosting decisions.

Feel free to leave comments and share your own hosting stories and experiences!

Cheap Web Hosting That Doesn't Suck is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

So, without further ado, here are the WordPress plugins I simply cannot live without.  Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration…but my life with WordPress as I know it would cease to exist without these plugins and the ingenious developers that create them.

I’ll start with some plugins that take care of SEO:

• All-In-One SEO Pack – the name pretty much says it all.  One of the most important functions of this plugin is that it provides you with the ability to create titles, descriptions and keywords for individual pages and posts manually.  It also has a handy feature which allows you to add a NOINDEX tag to category, archive and tag archive pages which helps to alliviate any potential duplicate content concerns.
• Robots Meta – this plugin way more awesome than its simple name would imply.  Of course, it allows you to alter the robots tags on individual pages and posts by providing index, follow; noindex, follow; index, nofollow and noindex, nofollow options.  That’s just the beginning.

  This plugin also provides you with the ability to prevent the indexing of your RSS feeds, search results pages, admin, login and registration pages, author archives and more.  Is that it?  No…that’s not it.  It also provides you with the flexibility to add a nofollow function to a variety of links, including the outbound links on the site’s front page, links to comment sections, login & registration pages, etc.  You can also add NOODP and NOYDIR tags to posts and pages.

It is important to note that I also recommend Platinum SEO Pack, but since changing my blog’s theme recently it no longer works properly – causing a fatal error on the individual pages/posts throughout my site (the only exception being my home page).  This is the first time I have ever had such an issue with that plugin.  I’m a bit of a code plebe, so I have no idea how to resolve the issue.  I elected to simply go back to my original solution, which was to use All-In-One SEO Pack in conjunction with Robots Meta.  Together they provide basically the same features as the Platinum SEO Pack plugin.

• Google XML Sitemaps – while creating a sitemap isn’t necessarily a make or break task with regard to SEO, it is certainly considered a standard best practice.  This plugin not only creates a sitemap for you, it also does so automatically each time you publish a page or post.  Sweet, huh?  Yes…sweet indeed!

  Another great feature of this plugin is that it notifies the search engines when your blog has been updated.  Did I mention you also have the flexibility to determine what posts, categories, etc. are included in the sitemap?  Yeah…you can.  Nice!

Okay…now, on to the stuff that is a little less “behind the scenes”.  Here are my favorite plugins that impact the a user’s experience in some way.

• CommentLuv – why should people take the time to comment on your blog?  If you’re hoping they’ll do so just out of the goodness of their hearts, you’re in for some disappointment.  People these days are busy.  You’re lucky if they take the time to read one of your blog posts, let alone take the time to comment.  Why not give them some incentive to comment by using the CommentLuv plugin?

  This plugin automatically creates a link to their latest blog post based on the URL the provide when commenting.  It’s a small thing that can go a long way to encourage people to comment.  And you really have nothing to lose by using it.

• NoFollow Free – this subject is a source some of controversy for some bloggers, as illustrated by the comments I received on the post Why NOFOLLOW My Comments? in which I announced my use of NoFollow Free back in September.  The plugin allows you to remove the automatically generated NOFOLLOW attribute from your post’s comment links.

  Many advise against this because of the potential for spam.  I, on the other hand, wholeheartedly disagree.  First of all, the plugin provides a lot of options for controlling which comments have the NOFOLLOW removed and which don’t (like the number of comments one must leave, whether registration is required, etc.).

  You can also identify specific words, like…say “viagra” and “cialis”, that if included in the comment section will automatically revert the comment author link back to the default NOFOLLOW.  As is my contention with CommentLuv, there is nothing to lose by using it – provided you properly configure the settings for the plugin.

• Social Profiles – I was instantly hooked on this plugin the day Sugarrae released it.  This is yet another way to say a little “thank you” to those readers who take the time to comment.  The Social Profiles plugin allows your registered users to input their usernames for popular social sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter, etc.

  Why would they want to do that?  Because upon doing so there will be links to those profiles added to their comments automatically.  As the blog owner you have the choice of having text links or image links included.  Here are examples of each:

  
  

• WordPress Thread Comment – this provides your users with the option of replying to a specific comment made, rather than simply having their comment added to the bottom of the existing comments.  This is particularly useful for you, as the blog owner, in being able to reply to specific comments left on your posts.  Even if you’re the only one who ever uses the reply feature, this plugin is well worth installing.
• WP-SphinnIt – this plugin is really only useful for bloggers in the search marketing industry, but most of my readership belongs to the search marketing community or are small business owners.  Thus, this is among my favorite plugins.  It allows your readers to easily submit or Sphinn a post on your blog, as well as providing you with the flexibility to decide where the button appears – top left, top right, bottom left or bottom right.

  As with the original Sphinn button, it also displays the number of Sphinns the post has already received.  Why not just input the code provided by Sphinn manually?  I used to do that.  Then I realized that every time I changed my theme, I had to input the code again.  Why do that if you don’t have to?  Exactly.

• AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget – this plugin makes it uber-simple for your readers to submit the post or page to a variety of social media, networking and bookmarking sources like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.  It also provides you with a large number of customization options for what sources are included in the drop down menu, as well as a “more…” option that opens in a separate window that includes virtually every social media, networking and bookmarking source anyone could desire.  Are user-generated links always preferable to having to build your own??  :)

The following plugins fall into a “miscellaneous” category, I suppose.  Some have a bit of a positive impact on users, but their functionality really applies to your ability to more easily and more effectively manage your WordPress site/blog.

• Customize Your Community – this is yet another offering from Sugarrae as a result of her collaboration with Joost de Valk.  It prevents those registered as subscribers from being able to see the default WordPress pages which show the number of posts, pages, comments, etc.  It is great for maintaining design & brand consistency, as well as limiting the amount of information seen by your subscribers on the registration, login, logout, lost password and registered user profile pages.  A must for any blog owner who wants to encourage readers to register, but doesn’t want to allow them to see the default WordPress Dashboard.
• New User E-mail Setup – are you tired of your registered users getting a generic e-mail that includes their registration information?  I sure was.  This plugin allows you to create a custom e-mail to send to your newly registered readers.  Mine looks like this (and you’ll get one of your very own when you register):

  

• Ultimate Google Analytics – this plugin does more than just inputting your personal analytics code into your blog.  It provides a number of options regarding what should be tracked and what should not, including:   external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.  Very useful.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – sometimes all you need to know is covered in the name.  Anyone who has manually upgraded WordPress in the past can appreciate the ease of use and reliability of this plugin.  Anyone who has never upgraded WordPress to a new version shouldn’t even bother attempting to do so manually.  This plugin completely automates the process of upgrading and backing up your blog.  I can’t fathom why anyone using WordPress as their CMS wouldn’t use this plugin.
• Widget Locationizer – this is my newest find. I must admit that using the word “find” is a bit misleading. My friend Kevin at at ToMuse sent me an e-mail recently inviting me to check out his latest offering. So, what’s so great about this plugin? The real question is what isn’t so great about it. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been annoyed that the same sidebar widgets appear on virtually every page and/or post throughout my blog. Well, not anymore!

  With Widget Locationizer your options are virtually endless. We can finally decide for ourselves what widgets appear on what pages. This happens pretty often with product or service reviews. If it is a worthwhile product or service, we may want to place an affiliate link in the sidebar. In the past doing so meant having to add that affiliate link to the sidebar of every page or post. This plugin changes all of that. Widget Locationizer gives you the flexibility to assign specific widgets to individual posts and pages based on tags, categories or even single page/post ID. FINALLY!

Well, there you have it…the core list of plugins I use on a regular basis. Did I miss anything? Do you have some favorites you’d like to share? Leave a comment! Don’t forget that I don’t just recommend the NoFollow Free and Social Profiles plugins mentioned above – I also use them.

And, if you need a bit of extra incentive to register, perhaps you’d should read my Reasons To Login Before Commenting post. Here’s a hint…the number of comments required to have the NOFOLLOW attribute removed from comment links is far less for registered users than unregistered commenters. I’m just sayin’… ;)

Hi, I'm Alysson and I Am Addicted to WordPress Plugins is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.

I learn a little bit more every day…and I’m quite certain I still have VOLUMES to learn – not only about WordPress itself, but about web development in general.  Even for a code schmuck like myself, WordPress is pretty easy to learn – and even easier to manipulate, thanks to themes, CSS and plugins! I wish I’d have had a “must have WordPress plugins” list when I started using it, but I didn’t.  Instead, I’ve just been searching – adding more plugins and playing around with code – ah, geek fun!

The Plugins Really Make WordPress

The plugins are my favorite part of the WordPress platform. I’ve yet to find a function I wanted to add that couldn’t be accomplished by installing a simple plugin. I don’t build fancy sites – I build clean, simple, pretty, SEO friendly sites…and WordPress is perfect for that.  That said, a few months ago when I began this love affair with WordPress, I didn’t find any articles touting the must have WordPress plugins for rookies. Perhaps it’s because of the rate at which plugins change and new ones are released…or perhaps its just that I didn’t look hard enough for the info.  So, I decided to write my own – maybe it will help you find some useful WordPress plugins more easily.

Since my professional life pretty much revolves around SEO these days, it won’t be surprising that my core list of must haves does the same.  This should in no way, shape or form be considered an exhaustive or all-inclusive list of the best SEO-related plugins. These are simply the ones that I make certain to install during the initial development stages of every WordPress site I build.

So, without further ado, here they are:

• Platinum SEO Pack – this is a new find.  I recently upgraded to 2.6 only to find that the Robots Meta plugin no longer worked.  While I knew it should be fixed fairly quickly (and it was – a few hours later, in fact), I tend to be an impatient girl and felt the need to find a replacement immediately.  That’s when I happened upon the Platinum SEO Pack.  What I like most is that it seems to combine the best features of both the All In One SEO Pack and the Robots META plugin – both of which were my plugins of choice originally (and still use on several sites).
• Add This! Button – these “share & share alike” buttons are great ways to make it easy for the people reading your blog or visiting your site to share it with other like-minded people.  Add This! provides several options for adding a button to your site/blog.  You can simply add the code on whatever page you like manually, or – if you’re too lazy to do that (like me) – you can simply install the plugin.  There is a “drop-down” version (my personal favorite) and a “not drop-down” version.
• All-in-One Bookmarking Button – okay, so this is similar to the Add This! button mentioned above, but it’s from SocialMarker.com and it deserves mention.  It pre-populates the SocialMarker.com bookmark details and lets people choose what services to submit the info to without even having to input the info initially on Social Marker’s home page.
• Redirection – I think of it as more of a safety net at this point than anything else.  I’m sure it has a number of features I’m not using, but…I can live with that for now.  I like it because it will automatically generate a 301 redirect if a post URL changes.  If you change a post URL after you’ve already publicized it, without a 301 redirect you’ll lose all the link juice and visitors unless you 301 redirect the old URL to the new one.  Redirection will do it for you.
• Google XML Sitemaps – I’m not sure this really needs much explanation.  Sitemaps are good.  There is a plugin that will do it for you.  Also good.  It updates the Sitemap automatically when you make changes to the site/blog.  Even better.
• Feedburner FeedSmith – burning an RSS feed is good for building and online reputation, as well as developing a following.  If you will be regularly updating your blog with fresh content, you want the world to know about it.  Again, I use FeedBurner FeedSmith because it was recommended by some blogger friends of mine.  It’s easy to use and understand, but I have nothing to compare it to as this is the only burner I’ve used to date.  Try reading “Top 10 Reasons to Burn Your Feed” for a little more info.
• Ultimate Google Analytics – I think the name sums it up.  Thus far I have had little reason to use anything but the simple configuration.  Highly configurable as your level of expertise and need for more specific data gathering increase.  Frankly, rookies like me will probably just like that it inputs the Google Analytics code automatically.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – so, here’s the thing – when you’re new to WordPress and don’t know much about databases, servers, etc. one of the worst things that can happen is logging in to write a post and seeing:  “There’s a new version of WordPress – please upgrade…”.  The first time, “CRAP!” was all that leapt to mind…and off I went to learn how to do it manually.  The second time, that “CRAP!…” was followed by, “…not so fast – I bet there’s a plugin that will do this for me!”.  And there is…including making the necessary backups, deactivating & reactivating the plugins and cleaning up after itself when its done.  I’ve now used the Automatic Upgrade plugin several times without issue.
• ADDED OCTOBER 1, 2008:  “Social Profiles” – developed by Rae Hoffman and Joost de Valk, this plugin is an invaluable tool in building a sense of community and collaboration with those who take the time to leave comments on your posts.  This plugin allows your registered users to add their own social profile information, as well as links to those social profiles, on each comment.  The plugin is completely customizable and you can select the social networking sources that are most popular with your users.  SCORE!

A Nod To Brilliance – PROGRAMMERS!

I love programmers.  You guys are genuises – SERIOUSLY!  Not only is WordPress stellar as far as content management goes, but the brilliant minds that increase it’s usability/functionality by authoring themes and plugins are equally awesome.  I had never touched CSS, nor used any type of content management system before, so perhaps I’m unusually impressed with it just because I’m a development plebe.  Who knows?  The fact of the matter is that for someone like me who learns well on the fly and wants to take as much control as possible, without having to know everything there is to know from the start, it’s is perfect.

Get To It

So, there you have it – my glowing review of my experience with WordPress to this point, as well as a few plugins that I would label as “absolute must haves” for those building a site/blog with it for the first time.

I’m sure I’ve missed a ton of great ones – feel free to share your experiences and favorites!   Shouldn’t you be installing some WordPress plugins right now? Oh…AFTER you Sphinn this, that is. ;)

Must Have WordPress Plugins For Newbies is a post from: SEOAly - offering affordable small business website design, SEO Audit and Keyword Research services.