NZ Hosting BLOG

Blog Hosting — NZ Kiwi Style

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Help us invent an iPhone App …

March 10th, 2011 · General

[Ed. The offer of assistance is unfortunately no longer available. Thanks for understanding.]

A lot of people are raving about iPhone apps at the moment. Some folks have struck gold with both simple and complex apps in the latest technology frenzy — and good for them!

Around here, we know that it’s really a bit of a lottery as to whether any app really takes off or not, so we’re more concerned about providing apps that are actually useful (or at least fun!) in the first instance. But just like a lottery, you’ve got to have a ticket to be in with a chance.

Don’t have the skills, the time or the resources to develop your own iPhone app? Maybe we can help. Throw us your best iPhone app ideas. If we like your idea and we think we have the resources to make it happen, we’ll cut you in 50% on any profit once the app goes online. (Well, that’s only fair, isn’t it?)

Leave your ideas in the comments section below …

(“We” in this instance refers to Bryan Rentoul, Managing Director of NZ Hosting Ltd and the company’s on-tap team of outsource software developers. Your ideas will be visible to other viewers. Any idea taken up will receive a formal 50% profit share contract before development begins. Offer includes any iAd revenue from free apps.)

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Who’s visiting your site?

August 2nd, 2010 · SEO

Knowing at how many visitors you’re website gets each month is a good indication of it growth in ‘online presence’ — or the lack thereof.

In this article, we’ll point you to two places you can get started right away. There are huge number of information and service sites on the web dedicated to this very topic. Two great tools are available to you right now for free and are outlined below.

Webalizer Stats

webalizer icon

If you’re an NZ Hosting client, you can access ‘Webalizer’ statistics showing visitors and ‘hits’ to your site from you cPanel interface. Look for the Webalizer icon in the ‘Logs’ section once logged into cPanel. (Visit http://your-domain/cPanel and log in.)

There’s also a direct link you can use: http://your-domain/webstats, which will re-direct you straight to the Webalizer area in cPanel after providing your log-in credentials.

From there, click the little magnifying lens icon in the ‘View’ column of the row associated with the domain you’re interested in. You’ll then see a table of daily averages and monthly totals. Click the month name to get more detail for a specific month of the year.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides a rich set of statistics about visitors to your site — and it’s free. To use Analytics, you need to create an account at Google, or associate your existing Gmail account with Analytics. Visit http://www.google.co.nz/analytics/ to get started.

Google Analytics requires you to insert a snippet of JavaScript code into each page of your website where you want to gather visitor statistics. Read the instructions and the Google online help carefully and you shouldn’t have too much trouble.

If you need assistance with inserting the Google Analytics code, please open a support ticket, telling us where you want the code added and of course providing a copy of the code itself from Google’s site.



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Automatic blog-to-blog ‘ping-backs’

June 17th, 2010 · Blogging

WordPress (and other good) blog engines have a feature called ‘pingback’, a reportedly superior version of the older ‘trackback’ system. You can Google those terms to get more details. Meanwhile, this post is merely a test to see if mentioning this post over at the author’s personal blog activates a pingback successfully or not.

I’m sure I’ll write more on this, what it’s good for and how to use it to your SEO advantage later.


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Does search still matter?

June 9th, 2010 · General, SEO


Today’s thoughts on where we’re headed
9 June 2010, Bryan J. Rentoul

Of course search matters. But for how long and how much?

Everyone knows search engines are the mainstay of online traffic. Nothing else comes close to a No.1 ranking on Google’s search results for a hot search term. So in terms of online marketing,  focussed and relevant content still means everything, right? Well, … almost. But for how long — seriously?

Whilst search engines surely play the most important role for online marketers today, it’s just not known how current paradigms will hold up under pressure from growing social networks — and who-knows-what’s-next.

Some surprising competition

Steve Jobs, during his recent D8 Conference talk with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg (1hr 35 full length video) spoke of a whole new way people are finding what they want … and it doesn’t involve a browser or social networking. He pointed to a whole new phenomenon that’s grown out of Apple’s iTunes App Store. He explained how people surfing on their phone (and now likely also on iPads), are not heading to search engines to find, say, the closest  restaurant, but rather to a favourite app, such as Yelp. OK, so Yelp for the browsers is basically a niche market search engine … But the point is that iPhone users tend not to even use a browser to find things.

A serious threat to the ‘search is king’ marketing paradigm

Perhaps the most likely thing to over-shadow search in the marketing space in the nearer term is the very well known, yet barely understood explosion of online social network sites — you know, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Discuss, LinkedIn and all that lot. While these platforms seem unlikely ever to replace search as a functional paradigm, it would appear in the short term at least that they will consume growing chunks of our collective marketing resource. It’s just too hard to pass up that chance at ‘going viral’ — and after all, these are the current ‘in’ places to be.

History circles back again?

Looking back on some twenty years of the internet marketing — first there really was only word of mouth or email. Then website link and banner exchanges soon after. For a long time there was really no workable social networks — save a growing mass of disparate ‘bulletin boards’. Then came real-time chat with the début of ICQ, with no usable networks as such there either. Then search, then search didn’t really work any more. Then search got fixed (by Google). And here we are today… err … I mean, ‘were yesterday’. Today, we have network providers who allow us all to broadcast ourselves, instead of keeping that privilege strictly to themselves.

So now, as if we’ve tried to come full circle, the new cloud-marketing buzz is, ‘word of blog’ — with social network sites like Facebook et al having taken that the next natural leap. Suddenly, we’re all kind of strangely associated human beings again, albeit oddly detached — a real online human society at last.  Arguably, even more than before the internet dragged us away from the social clubs [Ed. places 'old' people went to meet friends!] back to our own fireplaces and computer screens, we have evolved into suspiciously healthy and certainly grander inter-personal communities. (I don’t recall ever calling a friend just to tell them I’d won a game of scrabble against some distant cousin before Facebook!) And if the twists and turns of those confusing sentences weren’t enough of a clue, then let me just say, “Frankly, it doesn’t yet feel at all like a final destination to me!” But I digress.

It’s getting more personal

Gaining and maintaining ongoing experience with ALL the social networking sites is clearly a must if you want to understand and leverage that space into the future. In this space, the usual patterns of statistical analysis are not going to be as useful as they were in more traditional online advertising. People’s feelings and emotions, and a more intimate, growing sense of privacy (or not) exist here. ‘Going viral’ could lead in either direction — good or bad. Social networks have moods, and moods change. There are cultures and passing sub-cultures. Somewhere in all this human chaos must be the ‘numbers’. But it seems less likely that statistics will shine enough light for smaller players. This world is more about fan bases and competitive popularity.

Trying to stay practical

The dot com boom and bust taught us the hard way not to assume that offline proven marketing strategies can last online. Now, we have to be careful not to make similar assumptions about what’s worked online for the past ten years as we go forward in this next newest, new version of the internet.

SEO still matters

That said, and despite all the warm fuzzies online social networking may bring — for now, it seems a good idea to stick to what we know. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) remains foundational for all online marketing. For want of a magical new formula, it is wise to concentrate on what works, while keeping feelers out for new ideas and keep testing, testing, testing, just as we always have had to do in the past.

New patterns are sure to emerge

One thing anybody who’s anybody in SEO has likely been testing is how community popularity (how many fans or friends you have) can affect search engine ranking. It’s not as simple as you might think, due mostly to the use of the ‘nofollow‘ policy of most social sites. But some interesting stuff seems to be emerging.

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Muscians+Fans+YouTube = FlashMob

June 9th, 2010 · Blogging, Fun Stuff

These days it’s pretty much taken for granted how the internet and new technologies will forever change our life experience, always faster than ever before. Consistency (*yawn*) and ‘static’ are like, ‘so last century’. Sometimes it seems a little scary … but often times, it’s just a whole lot of fun! You probably heard it here last. But hey! …

Check it out! Musicians using YouTube to create ‘Flash Mob’ promo videos, cutting out thousands of dollars and ‘the establishment’ to go direct to their fans! This is very cool …

YouTube post excerpt follows. Check out the official post at YouTube!

TheStation — June 06, 2010 — ”Vegas Lights” available on iTunes Now!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/vega…

Official 2 Piece Music video will debut on Tuesday June 8th! Phamous Music video coming soon!

End slate song: “Lucky Tonight” featuring Davedays available on the Vegas Lights album now.

Get Connected! Subscribe to Midi Mafia
http://www.youtube.com/midimafia

… more at the official post at YouTube!

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Business BLOG Hosting NZ

June 7th, 2010 · Blogging

Starting a Small Business Website
in New Zealand

Starting an online business or bringing an offline business to the internet is a daunting task. There are thousands of different approaches and technologies, and just as many people trying to sell their services or methodologies.  But what are successful business people actually DOING today?

Blogging!

In the early days of the ‘interweb’, aged and well understood paradigms of newspapers, magazines, radio and television were strong in the mindsets of website builders. We forever tried to ‘wow’ our visitors with shocking headlines, fancy graphics and all that on custom coded websites. Then we went about promoting our sites online through search engine optimisation (SEO). Perhaps not much of that has changed. But how your website gets attention these days is a whole different ball game.

In-house or contracted custom coded websites used to be  your only real option. Isolated online businesses had to continually re-invent their own wheels to keep up with changing fads in internet marketing. Then came ‘Web 2.0′.

Web 2.0

Nowadays, online business is all about social networking. It started with sites like Bebo, MySpace, SlashDot and has evolved into a virtual plethora of networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Delicious, Technorati, Google Buzz … and on and on. Who is the flavour of the month today? Who will be the leading ‘fad’ next year? Who can know! More importantly, how will we future proof our existing online content?

Staying Connected and Up to Date

It is increasingly difficult to keep custom coded  website content connected with the now,  ‘network of social networks’ — not to mention catering for the ever changing popularity landscape. Thanks to Web 2.0 style thinking, there are now ready-made and highly functional options available for us to leverage. Whilst things are more difficult on the one hand, the tools to get the job done are getting smarter every day.

New Tools — blogs, CMS and more

Enter blogging software such as WordPress and Drupal, as well as CMS engines like Joomla and Mambo. Personally, your author prefers the blog software arena, and of the many options available there,  is most fond of WordPress — which also happens to be by far the most popular free blogging platform today.

Blog hosting engines offer pluggable features to make Web 2.0 interfacing easy. Your readers can share your content with their friends on Facebook (or simply announce they ‘like’ your stuff with a single click), tweet about their new find on Twitter, tell others the good thing they Stumbledupon — all from a simple plug-in or two that you don’t really have to know anything much about. It’s all done for you.

Best of all, plug-ins in WordPress notify you when new releases are available and can be updated with a single click. And of course, the overall look and feel of a WordPress site can be easily changed through selection of countless existing free ‘themes’ — or you can even write your own or have one written for that ‘special’ site.

WordPress

This article was authored as a draft, edited over days, reviewed and proofed by several people and finally published online — all within WordPress — a free, browser driven blogging program. Once published, the article was shared to Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 social sites with just a few mouse clicks. None of this required any programming knowledge or fancy marketing skills. The result? Well, you’re reading this right now aren’t you?

Not Just for Blogging

As Lisa Sabin-Wilson points out in her book, “WordPress for Dummies“, the WordPress blog engine can just as easily be used for ‘static’ websites — and far more besides. You don’t have to be a news freak or online diary junkie to take advantage of these technologies.

Blog Hosting Options

Your WordPress blog website will need to be hosted on a web server to become available on the internet. There are to main options available to you for hosting a WordPress BLOG …

  • WordPress.com — free hosting — great for personal blogs
    This option allows you to get started easily with an address like http://your_name.wordpress.com. Available features are fairly limited (you can’t install your own choice of plug-ins), but several add-ons can be purchased on subscription basis to enhance your blog’s capabilities. (NOTE: If you plan to run a business blog, we strongly recommend the following option.)
  • WordPress.org — the name of the WordPress code project
    WordPress.org can be installed at your own host. Most importantly, you can put your blog on your own domain and this version is fully featured with no limitations, right from the start.


Online Businesses Prefer WordPress.org

There are many reasons for an online business to go with  a fully hosted WordPress.org blog hosting installation on a business domain. See this article by a professional blogger to learn the most important reasons why.

NZ Hosting’s WordPress BLOG Hosting Solution

NZ Hosting provides super-simple installation of WordPress through a cPanel feature called, ‘Fantastico’. There are just three simple steps to get up and running with WordPress hosting:

  1. Select a hosting package from our Service Portal Order Page
  2. Choose a domain and pay for the first month or year’s hosting
  3. Log in to your new cPanel and click Fantastico to easily install WordPress

If you’d prefer, our staff are also happy to set up your WordPress blog for you — the service is free for a standard installation. Simply order your hosting package, then contact us from our main site’s email form to request the installation, telling us what address you want for your blog — will it be your main home site at www.yourdomain.com, or in a folder of its own, such as www.yourdomain.com/blog? You might prefer a sub-domain such as blog.yourdomain.com. (Please allow up to 24 hours for installation to be completed.)

Getting a Head Start

Once your WordPress blog hosting is set up, there’s a wealth of great information online on how to put the system to best use in your business. Some excellent books have been written, including ‘WordPress for Dummies’, by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. Lisa operates her own business online using WordPress and offers a some well rounded good advice for those starting out. We’ve used this book in-house to help both staff and client get a head start with WordPress with good success.


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Welcome to our BLOG

June 6th, 2010 · General

Welcome to our BLOG

… all about blogging, online marketing, social networking from a business context, search engine optimisation and more.

Over the years, NZ Hosting Ltd has helped set up and has hosted a number of websites, primarily on an ‘invitation only’ basis. We’ve flown purposefully ‘below the radar’, focussing on core values and niche services. We’ve often joked internally about how our business model sort of personifies the Kiwi … a flightless bird that only comes out at night! We’ve learnt a lot, and of course we’re still learning. Now, we’ve decided to stick our collective beaks out — just a little bit more.

As the online business scene has changed over the past ten years — and especially recently — there has been a growing shift away from custom-coded websites toward ready-made publishing platforms such as blogging and content management systems (CMS) — WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, our own TurnKey CMS partnered venture and many, many more.

Today more than ever, customers who even need their own websites need systems able to quickly adapt to an ever changing online marketplace. What worked yesterday still works today, but frankly not as well and soon perhaps, not well enough at all.  The hard work of ongoing SEO effort has now expanded to include not only keeping your site playing nice with all the latest so-called ‘Web 2.0′ social networking sites — but is also now pressuring website owners to focus more on those external networks as a main source of traffic. Moreover, your site coding today must be concerned with far more than just its primary on-site functions. It must be able to interface with a growing number of other websites and in more and more intelligent ways.

Thus nowadays, open-source, community driven CMS and blogging engines are the order of the day and we believe very few custom coded small or even larger business websites will compete effectively with these, even in the near future. This is not so much for the increasing general power and ease of use of these community platforms, but because their embedded networking tools are being expanded and improved upon by hundreds of programmers regardless of the time or resources we humble site owners may have available. Put another way, so much is now available ‘for free’, that in most cases, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense maintaining or paying for a custom coded site any longer. (There are always exceptions, of course!)

This company is not at all immune to any of these shifts, and indeed has always sought to move with the ebbs and flows of change in the online space. The time has come to move our focus somewhat away from closed-door, niche market services, and more out into the public view — to now share our experience and knowledge for the greater good. We are reinventing ourselves.

Join us! :D

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