Reginald Chan

Category: Web Development

  • 4 Essential Features to Look For When Choosing the Best Web Hosting Solution for WordPress

    4 Essential Features to Look For When Choosing the Best Web Hosting Solution for WordPress

    Your web design and content are finally ready. Your brick and mortar business took off, so you’re looking to build a WordPress website to establish your online presence.

    Before you can even start developing your website, however, you need to find a good hosting for your site first. Otherwise, if you use a poor-quality website host, you could run into all sorts of trouble in the future, such as your site loading slow, getting hacked, etc.

    There are countless WordPress hosting providers in the market right now. And, choosing the right one that fits your business can be confusing. If you’re wondering which website hosting you should choose, Neil Patel wrote a review to help his readers narrow down their options for a dedicated WordPress hosting solution.

    If you’re wondering what features to look out for when choosing a WordPress hosting, then you’re in the right place.

    This article covers the crucial features your WordPress web hosting should possess.

    1. High Server Uptime

    A great web design is only the beginning of developing and launching a website. You need to ensure your customers can access the site anytime.

    Remember the times when you click on a link only to see “503 Service Unavailable”? 

    Frustrating, isn’t it?

    Several minutes of downtime can drive away potential customers, which means losing business. 

    Uptime refers to the amount of time your website is available as intended. On the other hand, downtime means your site is inaccessible due to server issues and related problems.

    There are two things that you should consider when comparing server performance:

    • If your website is not big yet, consider shared hosting. While it does not give you 100% uptime, you should expect at least 98%.
    • For big websites or web applications, choose a dedicated hosting with the highest server uptime. Providers will usually state 99.9999% uptime. The six digits represent the best uptime performance. 

    It’s worth pointing out that there are several types of WordPress hosting. The most common are free, shared, virtual private servers, cloud hosting, and dedicated server plans. 

    Depending on which stage your website is right now, the amount of content your site has, the number of monthly visitors it gets, etc., you’ll be better off using one WordPress hosting type over the other.

    2. High Disk Space and Traffic Allocation

    Disk space is the amount of storage that your WordPress site takes up on the server.

    Your website is composed of database files, web pages, and other assets.

    As you add more content to your website through blogging or other pages, it consumes more space. 

    Traffic works the same way. It requires computing power from the server to deliver your site to your visitors.

    For small websites, traffic allocation may not be an issue. However, if you expect your website to gain more audience, consider looking into each hosting package’s allotted traffic. 

    Providers often put a cap value over the traffic. When the number of visitors is maximized, your website will stop responding. 

    Unlimited disk space and unlimited traffic are usually available on expensive hosting packages. It can be costly when you are just starting out.

    You can choose a plan with smaller disk space and traffic allocation. However, your service provider should have an easy upgrade option so you can quickly increase them in the future.

    3. Website Analytics

    Whether you are running an online shop or offering your services online, the goal is to increase your audience.

    As such, website analytics is an essential feature that you should check out when shopping for a hosting plan. 

    Most providers include analytics tools for free. If possible, ask for a demonstration of its functionalities.

    Make sure the user interface is intuitive and easy to understand. Some providers only offer limited analytics features, with its advanced features only available for extra bucks.

    At the very least, you should see how much traffic your website generates at a given time. You should also see the amount of space you have and how much your current site is using. 

    The hosting plan should support the installation of third-party web analytics tools without extra charges. Among the most popular are Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Kissmetrics.

    4. WordPress Updates and Website Security

    WordPress powers around 38% of all websites on the Internet. Its popularity, coupled with countless themes, extensions, and plugins, create vulnerabilities in the system that hackers and malicious programs can exploit. Even a minor security breach can affect your website. 

    Fortunately, WordPress developers are continuously working to improve its security. As such, your hosting plan should include automatic WordPress updates.

    This makes it easy to keep track of the latest releases. Updates ensure that you have the latest protection against new threats.

    Some providers even include an update scheduling functionality, so you know when your website is due for maintenance. 

    The host’s servers should also include a firewall that prevents malicious attacks such as SQL injections and data theft.

    Other popular security measures include anti-vulnerability, anti-malware, and more. 

    Other Features to Take Note

    Aside from the essential features above, you should also explore advanced functionalities such as:

    • Email accounts – Some hosting packages include professional email accounts that carry your domain name.
    • Advertising credits – Most plans include advertising credits up to $50. You can spend it on Google Ads or other online advertising services to drive traffic.
    • Content Delivery Network (CDN) – Depending on the host’s servers, CDN allows visitors to access your website much faster, which significantly improves user experience.
    • Service support – It will be hard to keep track of your server’s health, WordPress updates, and security without experts. Most hosting providers offer 24/7 support through email, chat, or phone.

    What’s next?

    Remember, don’t settle for crappy hosting. With low-quality hosting, you put your business at risk. What’s more, you lose tons of sales potential, which could easily hurt your bottom line.

    Now that you know the essential features that your WordPress hosting solution should have, you should be ready to set-up your website in no time.

  • Malaysia Web Design: Ultimate Guide In Choosing A Web Design

    Malaysia Web Design: Ultimate Guide In Choosing A Web Design

    And if you are looking to find for inspiration for your website design, I hope I can share some lights on this too!

    Malaysia web design. Web design Malaysia. It doesn’t matter how you put it but I’m sure you want to know more about website design in Malaysia. If you are looking to find the best (most affordable) web designer, you are going to find the answer here.

    Malaysia Web Design: Why it matters?

    COVID-19 pandemic had hit the little country, Malaysia hard. Just like any other countries in the Asia, the pandemic had caused many disruptions especially to how normal brick and mortar businesses operate.

    The needs for the business to survive is more important than ever and since the pandemic hit the country, the eCommerce industry had bloomed far and wide, as if it is the mushrooms growing after a rain.

    In order start an eCommerce store, you need to have a decent (or at least a workable web design).

    Having a good web design helps your website visitors to navigate through the site, giving them the information they are looking for.

    A great Malaysia web design solution will help you turn cold visitors into hot leads in a very short time.

    What makes a web design layout great?

    When it comes to website design, being great is an extremely important part to stand out from the crowd. But did you know that a great website doesn’t need to be complicated?

    In many cases, a great web design is simply focus on lead generation and easy navigation, as well as the basic needs of website loading speed and mobile friendliness.

    What are the recommended web design layouts?

    End of the day, it really depends on what you need (in terms of layout). However, here are two of my favorites:

    Simplicity by Astra Theme

    Simplicity by Astra Theme

    Visual builder by Elegant Themes

    Visual builder by Elegant Themes

    Hiring the best Malaysia web design agency/freelancer

    Now, there will be a time where you say:

    • I don’t have the time
    • I don’t know coding
    • I am just too busy running my business

    But you still want to have a website that looks good.

    In this case, your best bet is to hire a website design freelancer or agency. I have been doing website design since 2004 and while I can’t speak for the vast majority in Malaysia, here’s the estimated pricing you should be expecting.

    Malaysia website design pricing

    As you are aware, I’m the co-founder of Marketing Lancers, the first fully online digital marketing agency in Malaysia. Website development is one of our most popular services and we took sometime to create the best web design pricing for startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners.

    Rapid Deployment (non eCommerce) Rapid Deployment (eCommerce) Custom Solution (non eCommerce) Custom Solution (eCommerce)
    • Quick project completion (under 7 days)
    • Customization from existing agency templates
    • 10,000 image optimizations included per month (at no cost!)
    • Premium security patching and monitoring software ensuring your site is safe 24/7/365
    • Servers focused on speed and security performance
    • One year of free web hosting and domain registration
    • Malaysia web design pricing starts from RM2,000.00 per project
    • Quick project completion (under 14 days)
    • Customization from existing agency templates
    • 25,000 image optimizations included per month (at no cost!)
    • Premium security patching and monitoring software ensuring your site is safe 24/7/365
    • Servers focused on speed and security performance
    • Complimentary product uploads (10)
    • One year of free web hosting and domain registration
    • Malaysia web design pricing starts from RM3,500.00 per project
    • Project completion within 30 days
    • Highly customizable website design
    • 10,000 image optimizations included per month (at no cost!)
    • Premium security patching and monitoring software ensuring your site is safe 24/7/365
    • Servers focused on speed and security performance
    • One year of free web hosting and domain registration
    • Malaysia web design pricing starts from RM3,500.00 per project
    • Project completion within 45 days
    • Highly customizable website design
    • 25,000 image optimizations included per month (at no cost!)
    • Premium security patching and monitoring software ensuring your site is safe 24/7/365
    • Servers focused on speed and security performance
    • Complimentary product uploads (10)
    • One year of free web hosting and domain registration
    • Malaysia web design pricing starts from RM5,500.00 per project

    What, what are the differences in the pricing? Allow me to explain further!

    Rapid Deployment.

    This is a web development solution that is affordable and quick. Rapid deployment allows you to quickly launch a website, have a great layout that is optimized for speed and mobile, and comes with a low learning curve. We have created quite a handful of blog layouts and upon choosing the preferred one, we will work on that design while customizing it to give it the right feel for your business.

    At Marketing Lancers, we opt not to go for the cheap web hosting Malaysia pricing because:

    • Cheap is often not sustainable (for us)
    • Cheap means security issues (for the client)
    • Cheap means unreliable servers (for us)
    • Cheap means low server performance (for the client)

    More importantly, we are one of those who actually provide image optimization, server hardening and server performance tweaking compared to others in the market.

    Custom Solution.

    Custom solution is best if you want to create a unique brand and customize everything to build your website. In short, you are looking to build your website from scratch and the entire website will be customized to your exact needs.

    Malaysia Web Design Pricing (Summary)

    The pricing for web designing projects in Malaysia varies. However, a decent and reliable web hosting service would starts around RM2,000 for a single web development non-eCommerce project and RM3,500.00 for a single web development eCommerce project.

  • Why Speed Matters: The Impact of A Responsive Website For A Business

    Why Speed Matters: The Impact of A Responsive Website For A Business

    If you are a business owner and have a business website, the chances are that you have seen the mobile revolution technology has brought to the business scene. Whether you like it or not, you want your business website designed in such a way that favors mobile users. 

    In this day and age, website developers are so much into how websites can be responsive via mobile devices. But this is not what website responsiveness is all about. Various elements must be at play for this to happen. So, what’s all the fuss about website loading speeds? Here’s the impact of a responsive website for a business. 

    Adjustability

    Gone are the days when you had to make do with a slow website. Today, and if you haven’t noticed, consumers are savvier than they used to be. Not so many website visitors will be willing to waste their time on a non-responsive website. This can be attributed to the fact that life has gotten busier and not to forget the power of fast connectivity. Needless to mention is the fact that your business profitability is highly dependent on your website’s loading speeds. 

    Additionally, mobile design technology is at another level. The best part of it all is that you have the option of choosing web designers and hosting services of your choosing. This way, they’ll create a web design that’s easily adjustable and one that will provide you with the flexibility you deserve. This bronze reseller hosting option is one example of the many hosting services you can rely on to ensure that you get the hosting services you deserve. So, why do you need a good hosting company? Here’s why: 

    • Improved web loading times
    • You get to benefit from a secured IP address
    • Lowered chances of disruptions and downtimes
    • Professional advice on how to manage your website
    • 24/7 customer support
    • It makes it easier to scale your business operations
    • Better website maintenance services

    Increased Sales And Great ROI

    The fact of the matter is, you still want to have your investment bear fruit. No one creates a responsive website without a clear cut-out plan. While there exist a plethora of SEO strategies that are geared to improving your business website, none is as effective as having a responsive website. A responsive website helps to generate quality traffic to websites, and this is what most, if not all, profit-oriented businessmen and women are capitalizing on. At the end of the day, you want your products to receive the attention they deserve. Do not limit your business to just having an ordinary website. Consider a website that can help to expand your business horizons.

    Manageability And Increased Efficiency

    Never has it been easier to manage a responsive website as in this day and age. Today, you have the option of investing in an all-inclusive platform that can be integrated into most of your business processes, making it easier to track results. Now, this is where analytics come in handy. With a generated responsive website design from the best web designers, you’ll have the ease of tracking success. You’ll also be aware of how your competitors are doing in the market. This has, in so many ways, helped businesses develop strategic tactics to help overcome today’s competitive market space. 

    Increased Visibility

    Now, who wouldn’t want their brands to become the talk of the town? Today, brand awareness is among the factors that contribute to success. Even with the best marketing strategies, you wouldn’t want your web visitors discouraged just because your website loading speeds are below average. Investing in responsive websites has helped businesses boost their brand visibility and, in a way, helped to boost awareness and sales. Profitability should always be at the top of every entrepreneur’s priorities. And what better way than in ensuring that your website is responsive?

    Compliance With Google’s Recommendations

    Just the other day, Google announced that only responsive websites would be awarded the best positions, this, coupled with other SEO strategies such as ensuring that websites are optimized for mobile use. There have been, however, recent changes and updates to ensure that these recommendations are towards improving user experience. Investing in responsive websites has helped businesses comply with Google’s recommendations. It’s for this reason that some sites will rank higher than others. By this, it means always ensuring that your website is always as per Google’s ever-changing algorithm updates. 

    Time Management

    Time is money. Every second wasted is money flushed down the drain. Rather than going for the conventional approach that involved creating a dedicated website for mobile users, you’ll have a single website that is optimized for all users. This is not only time-saving, but it’s also a cost-effective approach when running an e-commerce website. 

    Additionally, this has allowed entrepreneurs to minimize the resources they’d have otherwise used in administrative tasks. Enlisting the help of expert web designers means that you’ll have your work cut out for you. You’ll have a single interface that you can manage from anywhere, even while on the go. It’s for this reason that hiring a professional web hosting company cannot be reiterated enough, as it’s the only way this can be made possible. 

    Creation Of Advanced Business Website Management Tools

    You’ll agree that since the inception of this idea of having responsive websites, a lot has changed in the business management arena. Its become easier to manage business websites than it was years back. This has helped to trim the workload business managers had to put in. This is a smart move for e-commerce businesses looking to cut their business running costs. This has helped to boost profit margins as well as help to boost efficiency. 

    There you go! If you are yet to get on board with the idea of having a responsive business website, then your business could be bleeding valuable resources by the minute. The above pointers will provide you with insights on how your business could benefit from having a responsive website. Others are doing it, don’t be left out!

  • Integrating Salesforce With WPForms

    Integrating Salesforce With WPForms

    Have you ever wished to integrate Salesforce with your WordPress site? If you have been thinking about it, I’ve some awesome news for you today!

    Salesforce is now easily integrate-able with WordPress using WPForms plugin. The Salesforce addon will let you automatically send form entries from WPForms to Salesforce CRM.

    If you’ve been copying data from your form entries to Salesforce, this addon will be a game-changer.

    And you don’t need to pay for a service like Zapier to connect WordPress to Salesforce. So you’ll save money too.

    Automatically Create Salesforce Objects

    The new integration between Salesforce and WPForms allows you to easily create objects in Salesforce without coding skills.

    The best part? You can do it directly with WPForms.

    Here’s how it is done quickly and correctly.

    Create Salesforce Object Wpforms
    Create Salesforce Object in WPforms

    There are many other ways you can use WPForms with Salesforce, including creating a new Lead from each submission. In short the possibilities are rather endless right here.

    The next step involves mapping the fields. Here’s how it is done quickly.

    Salesforce Wpforms Addon Field Mapping
    Salesforce WPForms Addon Field Mapping

    Not only what you can also leverage the advanced Conditional Logic if you want to have a better control on both WPforms and Salesforce integration.

    Salesforce and WPForms

    I find this integration very cool and I recommend you to give it a shot!

    Oh yes, this unique WPForm integration with Salesforce is available for Elite plans (and above). Click here to learn more about WPforms (and free download).

  • How To Boost Email List with WordPress Content Locking?

    How To Boost Email List with WordPress Content Locking?

    Do you know that you can easily build an email list by locking content on your WordPress blog. You might have heard about this and even seen this yourself — using a WordPress content locking plugin can easily boost your email list quickly and effectively.

    In this article, I’m going to show you exactly how you can lock content on WordPress and boost your email list at the same time.

    Setting WordPress up for content locking

    There are many WordPress plugins that you can use to lock content (quickly and without any coding skills). My favorite plugin is OptinMonster (click here to check the demo).

    ”

    OptinMonster’s Content Lock will blur or remove content below a set point on the page, so visitors have to opt in to see the whole article. This is a no-hassle way to grow your email subscriber list with content you’ve already published. OptinMonster works on any platform, so it’s easy to add a content lock to WordPress or any other content management system.

    How does OptinMonster content locking works?

    Glad you asked!

    Take a look at this video to learn more about OptinMonster content locking feature:

    As you can see, there are two ways content locking works perfectly well for WordPress users.

    1. If you are a blogger or content publisher …

    Content locking is an awesome way to build an email list — even though content should be free (for public digestion).

    If you are publishing a high value content on your WordPress blog, using OptinMonster content locker will help you build an email list quickly and making that content work harder for you.

    Crafting the best content for your website visitors (with content locking feature) might take a while to accomplish, but this is an excellent way to build an email list!

    2. If you are a small business marketer …

    OptinMonster’s Content Lock can help you improve lead quality by using gated content to attract qualified leads. You can use content locking with any website content, to hide part of your content, until your visitor has opted in.

    Yes, you read that right. OptinMonster works not only with WordPress but with dozens of other website CMS too.

    By using a content locker plugin or addon, you can quickly increase your leads and ultimately, generate sales and revenue.

    OptinMonster Content Lock feature can also help small businesses grow their email lists by using content locking to to boost content engagement, and to increase the perceived value of your content.

    Recap

    There’s more to what OptinMonster and content locking can do especially when you have the right strategy. Without a doubt, content locking is an excellent way to boost email list quickly and cheaply.

    Undecided if this is right for you? Click here to try OptinMonster content locking feature right now!

  • A Fool-Proof Guide for Easy cPanel Usage

    A Fool-Proof Guide for Easy cPanel Usage

    When it comes to web hosting, you will find that there are thousands of options out there, with hosts all over the world offering their services. Some will be large international companies with data servers in different continents, while others will be small independent web hosts who may be renting the servers that they use for the hosting.

    The majority of web hosts will have a number of different options available for their hosting, with the most popular option being shared hosting. Others more advanced options include VPS (virtual private server) hosting or a dedicated server.

    Shared Hosting

    Shared hosting is what the majority of people who are getting started with websites and hosting will use. As the name implies, shared hosting is where the resources of a server are shared among hundreds, and potentially thousands, of clients, each with their own portion of resources such as disc space, data transfer, CPU usage and various others.

    There are a couple of downsides with shared hosting in that there may be instances when other clients on the server are overusing the resources that they have been allocated, which in turn can affect every other user on the server, but these problems are often quickly resolved by the host when spotted. However, if you are using very cheap $1 a month shared hosting, then you should expect such issues to occur more frequently than you’d like.

    Many web hosts like the shared hosting option as it is relatively easy for them to set up a server for this, and they can offer this for a much cheaper price when compared to something such as VPS hosting, which is a much more powerful option. You find some excellent comparisons of shared hosting at the Fortune Lords website, which is packed full of useful information and reviews.

    Managing your hosting account

    One of the most popular control panel systems for managing shared hosting accounts is cPanel. It is a very powerful  system and provides you with everything you will need to effectively use your hosting account.

    At first glance, you might sign into your hosting account and see the multitude of different sections and options of cPanel and feel a little nervous about how to use it. However, don’t worry. For most users, you will only ever need to use very few of the options in front of you. In this article, we will take a look at the most important features that you need to know to get your websites up and running.

    Add-on Domains

    The domains section of cPanel is where you add your domain name to the system. Depending on the hosting package that you signed up for, you might be limited to a single or small number of domains. Other packages will offer you the ability to add unlimited domains to the server, which is the best option if you are someone who has a large number of sites to manage.

    To add a new domain to the hosting account, simply click on the “add-on domain” option. You will then need to enter the domain name and set the folder location for where the files for the site will reside. The folder for each domain name you add should be inside another folder which is called “public_html”. Sometimes you may actually need to enter this as well as your folder name when adding a site. Other times it might be set to default to that folder.

    File Manager

    The file manager option is where you have the ability to manage all of the files on your hosting account. If you click on the “file manager” button, a new window should open in which you will see all of your files. For the website files, you will want to navigate to the “public_html” folder.

    You can upload files to your site folders through the file manager, but this must be done one at a time. If you have a multitude of files to upload you should either compress everything into a zip or rar file to upload, and then decompress inside the folder, or to use an FTP program, which connects with the server and allows you to upload multiple files at the same time. If you do want to use an FTP program then FileZilla is an excellent choice. It’s a free download that is very powerful and extremely easy to use.

    Email Accounts

    Once you have your website up and running, you will most likely want to create an email account for the site. Simply click the “email accounts” option, where you will be able to see any existing email accounts, as well as the ability to create a new one.

    Simply click on the “new” button to create a new email account. Enter the name for your email, such as info, hello or anything else. Then select which domain name you want the email for. If you have multiple domains added to the hosting account, you simply use the drop down menu to select the one you want.

    Then you enter your password – which should be a combination of numbers, letters and capital and lowercase. There is a password generator option that you can use to create an automatic password for you which will be secure. If you want to set up your email account in a program such as Outlook on your computer, then you can click for the email settings details, which will list all the information including the mail servers. 

    Alternatively, you could use the web based mail that cPanel provides, and log directly into the server to check or send any emails.

    You can also set up any forwarders, so that copies of emails can be sent to additional emails, or even create autoresponders, which will automatically send a message any time an email is received.

    Some closing thoughts

    Hosting your own websites needn’t be something to be troubled or anxious about. There are just a few things you need to be aware of with your hosting package. There are lots of advanced features that you probably won’t ever need, so don’t panic when you open cPanel for the first time and see so many different sections and options.

    As mentioned earlier, cPanel is the complete hosting management system, and provides a huge range of features that many power users may need, but for the average user, they probably won’t ever need to click on over 80% of the options on the screen. Of course, if you do have questions or need help, then get in contact with your host. They will be in the best position to assist you and take care of any problems you are facing.