How Often Should You Refresh Your Site’s Look and Feel?

September 10, 2020

When running a website, it’s natural to go through a few redesigns over the years. But how do you know when is the right time to refresh your site? The general rule of thumb is to refresh your website every two to three years. However, sometimes other factors indicate it’s time to switch things up. We’ll be going over those indicators below. If any of them apply to your website, it may be time to start thinking about refreshing your site’s look and feel. When Your Site is Underperforming Underwhelming performance is one glaring indicator that your website is ready…

Design & Development, Weebly Site Builder

How to Create a “Swag” or Merchandise Store with Weebly

September 3, 2020

What You’ll Need: A Shared Hosting Account What is a “Swag” or Merchandise Store? If you’re reading this post, you’re likely familiar with a “Swag” store. It’s a shop that furthers your brand by selling exclusive brand merchandise. This can be anything from branded clothing to virtual memberships. “Swag” or merchandise shops are a great way to further your podcast, influencer account, etc. They not only give your followers a way to further support you, but some of the usual swag items will do advertising for you. So people are paying you so that they can wear or own something…

WordPress

Optimizing Your WordPress for Marketing

August 27, 2020

What you’ll need: Managed WordPress Hosting A Desire to Improve Your Site Why Should You Optimize Your WordPress for Marketing? When building a website, you’re focused on the end goal: creating a functioning (and hopefully aesthetically pleasing) website for your audience. But after your website is created and launched, you may feel at a loss. What do you do next? Marketing is the answer. You’ve built your site, now it’s time for you to promote it. You can use marketing to grow your audience, strengthen your brand, make sales, and so much more. For some of you, this is probably…

Security

2020 Security Suggestions from the Pair Security Team

August 20, 2020

With many people moving and expanding their businesses online, it’s important to take steps to secure your online presence. Practicing good security habits keeps your virtual assets safe from those who would do it harm. With malware, ransomware, phishing, and other digital attacks floating around on the internet, you can never be too careful. Luckily, if you practice good security techniques, you can make your account and online assets much less vulnerable to attacks. That’s why we asked our security team here at Pair Networks what security suggestions they had for our customers. Here’s what they recommended focusing on: Pair…

Online Business, WordPress

No Coding Required: Start an E-Commerce Site with WordPress

June 12, 2020

What You’ll Need: Pair WordPress Hosting Pair Domains Custom Domain What is WordPress? WordPress is a CMS (or Content Management System) that makes it easy to build websites. We’ve put together a guide to help you use WordPress to design your very own e-commerce site! Don’t worry – the process is simple. We have all the tools you need right here at Pair Networks to get you started. We’ll cover: Who WordPress is right for How to create an e-commerce site with WordPress If you have any questions about getting started with a WordPress e-commerce site, we’re here to help! …

Design & Development

Which Open-Source CMS is Best for You?

February 10, 2020

CMS, or Content Management Systems, can help maximize the amount of time you spend creating content. It simplifies pushing content out so you can spend more time with your content and less fiddling with the back end. Whether that’s by supplying a beginner-friendly interface with low to no code or just giving you a simple process for publishing your content. If you would prefer to use a CMS to manage your website content, then you’re in luck! There are loads of CMSs out there for you to use. On the downside, there are loads of CMS out there. So how…

Security, WordPress

Wordfence for Beginners

September 27, 2019

Keeping your WordPress website secure should be a top priority. After putting in all that work to design, promote, and launch your WordPress site, you don’t want to lose all of your content in an attack. A simple way to protect your WP site is with the Wordfence security plugin.

ssl certificate faq blog header graphic with white lock icons against dark blue background and grey and orange text

Security, SEO

FAQ: SSL Certificates

June 24, 2019

What is an SSL certificate? How does it work? Do you really need one? Learn everything you need to know about SSL certificates with this FAQ post!

WordPress

WP Hosting vs. Shared Hosting for Your WordPress Website

May 23, 2019

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available, which is one of the reasons pair offers separate hosting services specifically designed for WordPress websites. WP hosting plans don’t exist to make you pay more for having a WordPress website. There are real advantages to using WP hosting for your WordPress website. It doesn’t work for every budget though, which is why pair also offers Shared hosting with pairSIM for WordPress. Which type of hosting will work best for you and your WordPress website?

SEO

How Social Media Influencers Can Benefit from Having a Website

March 25, 2019

A website can help micro- and macro-influencers expand their brand and monetize their reach more effectively. With a website, influencers have a one-stop shop to showcase their brand and share it with potential collaborators. Websites allow for more flexibility with the messaging and format while also establishing credibility for you as an influencer. Are you a social media influencer? Influencer marketing means businesses focus on influential people on social media instead of trying to reach their target market as a whole on a particular platform. Instead of investing money in sponsored tweets or boosted Facebook posts, businesses will have an…

SEO, Web Hosting

More Lanes, More Traffic: 5 Ways to Grow Your Website Audience

March 22, 2019

In the real world, adding more lanes for cars always equals more traffic. You can apply the same idea to your website. Adding more lanes or more ways people can find your site, the more traffic you’ll see. You can create lanes using a variety of different tools and methods. Here are five quick strategies to help you get started: 1. Paid Acquisition As with most things, money talks. The quickest way to get more web traffic is through paid acquisition or online advertising. If you have the budget for it, start with pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on Google. Google processes…

SEO

Landing Page vs. Website: What’s the Difference?

March 12, 2019

Many businesses use a combination of landing pages in addition to their website to generate awareness and attract new customers. Other businesses rely solely on their website to reach and satisfy the needs of their audience online. What’s the difference between a landing page and a website? Which one should you use for your business?

Design & Development, Email, How To, Tutorials

All About SPF Records

February 13, 2019

If you have email, you’re familiar with spam. It seems that no matter how many protocols, filters, and walls we implement, spam always seems to be finding a way through. Not only that, but sometimes spam uses our emails to seemingly send spam. This is called spoofing. Spoofing is when a spammer changes the from address to a different, legitimate email. So while we’re not actually sending the email, it will look like the email has been sent from our email. To help combat spoofing, you can use an SPF record. What is an SPF record? SPF stands for “sender…

Design & Development, Security, SEO

How Dedicated, Shared, and Parked Domains Relate to IP Addresses

February 6, 2019

What are IP Addresses? IP (Internet Protocol) Addresses are used to identify different computers and devices on the internet. It’s like an home address – the internet uses IP addresses to locate and transfer data to and from places. IP addresses are usually a bunch of letters and periods, like 216.83.241.113. While this is easy for a computer to understand and compute, we humans have a much harder time remembering a jumble of numbers. That’s why we’ve tied domain names to IP addresses. It’s much easier to remember website.com than it is to remember 216.83.241.113. That’s one of the reasons…

Design & Development, Security, Tutorials

Back that Site Up: A Backup Guide through the ACC

January 31, 2019

It’s important to ensure that you always have copies of your files and to understand how to generate your own backups to avoid losing potentially valuable information. Backups can be useful to recover files in the case of accidental deletion, to revert a site to a previous version if changes don’t work out as planned, or to restore a site after data loss. A Backup Guide for Your Site While pair Networks does keep backups of each server’s hard drive, they are only for restoration of an entire server after a drive failure. They cannot be used to restore individual…

Design & Development, SEO, WordPress

SEO for WordPress

January 30, 2019

Your new WordPress blog looks dazzling. The content is intriguing. It’s lights, camera, action! Now all you need is an audience. But where to find them? How do you draw visitors in? SEO for WordPress SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is an important strategy used to connect your site with the right audience. A first-page result for the right search on Google will direct much more traffic to your site. The higher the ranking, the more competitive it is, with the top three search results for popular searches being the ultimate prize. So how do you start edging…

Design & Development, Web Hosting

Shared, VPS, & Dedicated Hosting Platforms – What’s the Difference?

January 23, 2019

Web servers are the foundation for websites. However, not all servers are the same. Not only are there differences in hardware, but there are different server types that offer different amounts of security. These differences, combined with the hardware, can make up drastically different hosting packages. We’ll go over three of these popular hosting types and lay out some common characteristics of each of them. Shared Hosting Shared web hosting accounts share the resources (like memory and RAM) of a single server with other shared web hosting accounts. You can think of shared hosting like owning a single unit in…

Design & Development, Security, WordPress

Lock it Down: How to Keep Your Site Secure

January 16, 2019

In an era where websites are compromised by malicious software all the time, one of the most common security questions is ‘How do I help protect my site from hackers?’ Although it can seem daunting, there are plenty of steps you can take to help keep your site secure. How to Keep Your Site Secure Keep it Fresh Always keep your platforms (like WordPress, Drupal, etc.) and their associated plugins up to date with the latest versions. Having outdated software is one of the easiest ways for malware to break into your site. Think of an old version of WordPress…

Design & Development, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress

Content Management Systems: Joomla, Drupal, & WordPress

January 2, 2019

If you are looking to build a dynamic website without having to worry about the coding and technical aspects of it; WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal have established themselves as the leaders for online content management systems. Comparing Content Management Systems No one CMS is better than another. It largely depends on your situation, site goals, and skill level. WordPress, Joomla, & Drupal What is a Content Management System? Otherwise known as a CMS, it is a system used to manage the content of a website. It allows the account holder who may not be familiar with coding, to manage the…

Design & Development

Why You Need an Event Website and How to Get Started

December 17, 2018

Whether you’re hosting a wedding or a conference, you can benefit from having a website for your event. You can increase awareness for your event and build anticipation more effectively with a website. A special event website will also give you more freedom and flexibility with messaging. You can easily change and update information as needed to let your guests and participants know what’s happening.

Design & Development, SEO

Why You Need a Small Business Website

October 29, 2018

Every business needs a website even your small business. Whether you’re starting a new business or you’ve had a storefront for years, there is value in joining the global community online with your very own website. The internet is a powerful tool that you can use to your advantage and reach millions of people. A small business website acts as a storefront, a marketing platform, and more all in one accessible place.

SEO

How to Measure Your Web Traffic and Performance

October 25, 2018

Understanding your web traffic and performance metrics will help you better evaluate your site’s value. Your website is an asset to your business. You can use it to increase your online revenue as well as the overall value of your business.

SEO, WordPress

SEO for WordPress: How to Get Started

September 18, 2018

Using WordPress to build your website has never been easier. You don’t need to take a class or learn how to code to use WordPress. While building a website is easy, getting people to visit your site is where it gets tricky. Simply having a website doesn’t mean people will find it and use it. You have to let people know your website exists first. And the key to attracting humans to your website is cooperation. Getting started with WordPress requires a little cooperation with search engines like Google and Bing. This cooperation is called search engine optimization (SEO).

Security, WordPress

The Do’s and Don’ts of WordPress Security

August 28, 2018

Don’t let the idea of WordPress security intimidate you. You can take a few simple preventative measures to reduce the risk of compromising your WordPress site. Here are some initial do’s and don’ts of WordPress security basics to get started:

an exclusive guide to wordcamp pittsburgh 2018 blog header against pittsburgh city skyline silhouette

WordPress

How to Get the Most out of WordCamp Pittsburgh 2018

August 21, 2018

Pittsburgh will host its third annual WordCamp conference on September 22, 2018. Are you ready to learn, share, and absorb everything there is to know about WordPress? Conferences offer an overwhelming amount of activities, information, and free swag. Use this quick guide to help you get the most out of your WordCamp experience!

WordPress

5 Common WordPress Problems and Solutions

August 14, 2018

WordPress is a powerful tool for creating, managing, and sharing your content. But even powerful tools need maintenance and a little help troubleshooting problems. If you want to simplify your WordPress launch, you can get a ready-out-of-the-box solution from a reliable web host.

WordPress

Our 10 Favorite WordPress Plugins

August 7, 2018

WordPress offers over 55,000 plugins to its users. Your site would probably crash if you tried all of the WordPress plugins available and you don’t have time to waste testing Worthless Plugins. So, here are several of our favorite (and useful) WordPress plugins:

WordPress

5 Security Tips for WordPress Beginners

June 27, 2018

Why Worry About Security? Security is an important part to consider when setting up a website. You’ve probably heard about a high profile security breach or attack in the recent past, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that cybercrime only happens to big companies with big assets. But any site can become a victim of cybercrime and it’s important to take steps to reduce your site’s vulnerability. We’ve compiled five security tips for all you beginners out there who want to create a site and keep it secure, too. #1 Keep Site Up-to-Date Keeping your site…

WordPress

What Does It Mean to be WordPress Optimized?

June 14, 2018

What do web hosts mean when they say optimized WordPress hosting? You already decided you want to use WordPress to build your site. Do you really need special hosting services for WordPress? It depends on what you want your WordPress site to do and your technical abilities. Here’s what you need to know about web hosting services optimized for WordPress.