What is a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)? 

A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is a domain name consisting of three parts: the hostname, the domain name, and the top-level domain. The hostname is the specific computer or device on the network that you want to use the FQDN for. The domain name is the section of the FQDN that uniquely identifies your network. The top-level domain is the highest level of classification for domains and is assigned by ICANN. For example, when you type “www.google.com” into your web browser, “www” is the hostname, “google” is the domain name, and “.com” is the top-level domain. 

Different computer types use different terminology for FQDNs like network names or full computer names. 

Why should I use an FQDN? 

FQDNs indicate unique addresses on the internet. If you don’t have an FQDN, you don’t have an accessible website. They’re required for installing SSL certificates, imperative to the security of your website. 

Apart from having an accessible website, FQDNs are also useful to have a discoverable computer on an internet network, like when you need to access a computer remotely. This is common in an office to track a computer’s activity. 

Also, FQDNs help you access domain services like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and email. For example, if you want to connect your domain name’s email to an email app on your phone like Gmail or Apple Mail, you need to know the FQDN for the mail server, which is typically something like “mail.yourdomainname.com.” 

Here is an example of an FQDN:

1. www.a2hosting.com
2. mail.a2hosting.com
3. ftp.a2hosting.com

How to find your FQDN

If you’re not sure how to find your FQDN, please review the following links: 

Find your FQDN for Windows OS (operating systems).

Find your FQDN for macOS.

When you generate a domain name, it should contain three parts. The first part is the hostname which identifies the specific computer or device on your network that will be using this FQDN. The second part of an FQDN is the domain name and it uniquely identifies your company’s network. Finally, there is the top-level domain (TLD) which classifies domains as either generic or country-code TLDs such as .com for commercial purposes. If you need help viewing any of these components within your own FQDN contact our support team today!  

Related Articles:

• How to manage cPanel Mail Exchanger (MX) records
• How to use the DNS Zone Editor in cPanel
• How to verify site ownership with Google
• How to determine your account’s server name

The post What Is a Fully Qualified Domain Name? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Although this may seem overwhelming at first, there’s a WordPress plugin that provides you with all of these aspects under one roof. With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you don’t need to install several plugins to get the features you want, since it offers nearly everything you need for your starter website.

What are the key features of Jetpack that make it unique?

Key Features of Jetpack

One of the best things about using Jetpack is that you can seamlessly integrate Jetpack to meet your needs. These are the main features of the Jetpack plugin:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN): A slow site could be cause for search engines to penalize your rankings. With a CDN, you can help your website load faster while saving on your server’s resources. The great thing about this Jetpack feature is that it’s free and provides users with unlimited CDN bandwidth.
• Social media sharing: Using Jetpack for WordPress can provide you with social media features such as share buttons that let your visitors share your content in just a few clicks.
• Lazy loading images: Jetpack has a lazy loading image feature that displays photos while a person scrolls rather than presenting them with a blank div. The feature is beneficial for websites that use a lot of images but don’t want to compress them, which can lower photo quality. This can solve many image loading problems.
• Shortcode embeds: The Jetpack shortcode lets you embed content from your social media straight to your website. With this feature, you can embed these components by copying and pasting URLs within the visual editor.
• Automated spam blocking: With the Jetpack WordPress plugin, you can save time by automatically setting it to block and remove spam. This feature allows your site visitors to browse without being distracted.

How Can Jetpack Benefit WordPress Users?

Are you still asking the question, “Do I need Jetpack for my WordPress site?” If so, then let us share with you a few benefits that the plugin has to offer for WordPress users.

It Enhances Website Functionality

One of the best things about the Jetpack WordPress plugin is that it offers many features in one place. This means that you don’t have to install a new plugin every time you want to add functionality to your website.

It Increases Website Traffic

A website that doesn’t drive traffic is useless with today’s standards. Using Jetpack for WordPress is great because it helps improve traffic to your site once it recognizes that it’s lacking in that department.

Through its Publicize feature, you can automatically have it push out new blogs that you publish to your social media pages such as on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter. This will help drive traffic from your social channels to your website.

It Provides Excellent Security

Nothing is more important for users than the security a website offers and this is exactly what the Jetpack plugin provides.

Its Protect feature offers fortified security by identifying and blocking any suspicious IP addresses from potentially harming a website. It also stops repeated login attempts that have failed to stave off cyberattacks.

It Offers Centralized Site Management

Running and managing several WordPress websites can be extremely time-consuming. Fortunately, the Jetpack WordPress plugin lets you streamline the site management process through a feature that lets administrators manage several sites from one interface.

Specifically, users can update all of the themes and plugins they have in each WordPress website simultaneously with just a click of a button.

Conclusion

The WordPress plugin known as Jetpack is one of the top add-ons users can get if they want to make managing their WordPress websites easier. Not only does the plugin offer better site functionality, centralized management, and improved security, but it also helps drive much-needed traffic.

At A2 Hosting, we offer the services of our experts to handle the administration aspect of your WordPress website. Getting a Managed WordPress account from us means that you can leverage numerous features, one of which is having a free Jetpack profile.

Talk to our sales team today if you would like to learn more.

The post The Key Benefits of Using Jetpack for Your WordPress appeared first on The A2 Posting.

So, What is URL Masking? 

Masking a URL means disguising its true destination, making it harder for someone to track where you are going. This can be an important tool for privacy and security, but there are also some potential downsides to consider. Developers mask URLs to obscure the true destination of a link. In order to understand URL masking, it’s important to understand what URL redirects are. 

URL redirections send a domain to an alternative URL. The HTTP protocol categorizes the URL redirects. 

There are three major types of URL redirects:

• 301 (permanent) 
• 302 (found/moved temporarily)
• URL frame (masked)

301 redirects are used when the destination URL of any website’s page changes. It’s commonly used when a website needs to be migrated to a new domain. 

302 redirects direct traffic to a new URL for a brief period. This is common for A/B testing. 

When migrating your website to a new domain name, the new domain doesn’t have a search engine optimization (SEO) authority. However, a 301 permanent redirect eventually gives 90% of the old website’s authority to the new domain. 

Google, a search engine, must verify the new website, which can cause a delay as it ranks the new domain. Some developers use 302 redirects for migration to avoid Google’s aging delay, but the 301 redirect is the proper method to use in this instance. 

Both 301 and 302 redirects display the new destination URL in the address bar in URL masking. Masked redirects allow you to use content from another domain while maintaining the address bar’s original name. 

This way, you use your homepage as the URL for every page of your website. Masked redirects are also called URL cloaking or domain masking. 

In other words, the mask refers to how the URL displays in the address bar. So your user thinks they’re on one domain when, in fact, they’re on another. 

When to Mask URLs

There are specific instances when website owners might want to mask links, including: 

• Masking affiliate links: Some users prefer to link cloaking to hide their affiliate links so that users won’t see they’re making money off of a purchase.
• Link shortening: long links aren’t visually appealing. Some users choose to shorten their links instead of changing their domain names.
• Hiding free web hosting URLs: Some users use free subdomains provided by their host, like store.a2hosting.com. So, you can use domain masking to make it appear as though the website has its domain. 
• Tracking: Some link tracking software use URL masking to hide tracking tags in the original URL. 

If you are looking for a way to improve your website’s security, or if you are trying to keep your website visitors from seeing where your website is hosted, domain masking may be the solution for you. Our support team would be happy to help set up domain masking for your website. Contact us today and let us know how to help make sure your website is as secure as possible.

Related Articles:

• How to set up URL frame forwarding
• How to rewrite URLs in Apache with the mod_rewrite module
• How to configure redirects in cPanel
• What Is A Parked Domain (And How to Use It)

The post What Is URL Masking? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Looking to learn more in-depth about the security included with all these plans? Below is an explanation of the different security tools and features included and how this can help you make sure your website is safe and secure.

The Importance of Security on Websites Using WordPress

When there’s a huge demand for a script or CMS, there’s a good chance that hackers and attackers will be keeping an eye on websites using it. At any one time, there could be hundreds or thousands of attacks happening on the internet. This makes WordPress websites a target.

As such, hackers will always be scanning WordPress websites for vulnerable areas. This means website owners who don’t properly prepare and secure their WordPress sites may be at risk. This is why you need to keep the security on your website in tip-top shape! Below are the features we offer at A2 Hosting on our Managed WordPress plans to help ensure your security success.

Managed WordPress Security Features

A2 Hosting’s new Managed WordPress plans now come with a selection of enhanced security features that have been designed to support our users such as HackScan Protection, Reinforced DDoS Protection, and KernelCare. We’re including a complete breakdown below of three of the main tools we will be including in the plans and the different security features they provide our users:

WordPress Toolkit

We include different levels of cPanel’s WordPress Toolkit on all of our WordPress plans. Below are some of the main security perks:

• 1-Click Hardening: Used to scan existing and new sites for settings that may be potentially vulnerable.
• Automatic Hardening: This can keep your site safe through the auto-application of the industry’s best practices in security.
• Mass Hardening: Scans all your sites for vulnerable settings while securing every site with just a click.
• Security Rollback: In rare cases, security updates may create compatibility issues on your website. This feature will allow you to quickly revert the changes made.
• Mass Updates: This allows you to execute updates for all of your website’s WordPress themes, core, and plugins.

Jetpack Security

We will also be including the popular Jetpack Plugin. This plugin comes with a multitude of security features including:

• Automated Spam Filtering: Protects your site by keeping spam content away.
• Brute Force Attack Protection: Works to keep your website safe by blocking unsafe login attempts from distributed attacks and malicious botnets.
• Free Daily Malware Scans (Included with our Fly & Sell Plans): This feature automatically checks your site for vulnerabilities such as malware. You’ll also receive immediate alerts if Jetpack finds problems to be addressed quickly.

A2 Optimized

All of our plans also come with our plugin, A2 Optimized. We’ve focused on various security measures with A2 Optimized, which include the following:

• Deny Direct Access to Configuration Files and Comment Form: This allows you to protect your configuration files by creating a Forbidden error to bots and web users who try to access WP configuration files.
• Lock Editing of Plugins and Themes from the WP Admin: This prevents exploits to use the built-in editing capabilities of the WP Admin.
• Login URL Change: With this, you can hide your wp-login and wp-admin pages, blocking off hackers from entry through brute force attacks.
• Regenerate wp-config salts: WP salts and security keys help to secure the site’s login process along with the cookies that WordPress implements to authenticate users.
• ReCAPTCHA on Comments and Login: Used to increase site security while decreasing spam by adding a CAPTCHA to the login screen and comment forms.
• Unused Themes & Inactive Plugin Notifications: Themes and plugins with security flaws can still have an impact on the site. Having these notifications can help you better manage other features on your site for improved security.

cPanel Security Features

There is also a wide range of improvements to cPanel’s Security. This includes:

• Directory Privacy: Blocks users who want to open a folder that you’ve designated for protection. They will first need to enter a username and password for access.
• Free SSL Certificate (Free RapidSSL On Sell plans): This allows you to secure pages on your website so that details such as credit card numbers, logins, and more are sent encrypted instead of plain text.
• Hotlink Protection: Stops your images from being used on other sites.
• Imunify360: A comprehensive security suite for real-time and proactive website protection. It provides an all-in-one security solution that features a Web Application Firewall, an Intrusion Prevention and Detection system, a Network Firewall, Patch Management, and Real-time Antivirus protection.
• IP Blocker: Blocks a range of IP addresses to stop hackers from getting access to your site.
• Leech Protection: Stops users from publicly posting or sharing passwords to restricted areas of your site.
• ModSecurity: Provides real-time monitoring for incoming threats and blocks malicious connections before reaching your WordPress website and applications.
• Patchman: This scans your account for any outdated WP malware scripts, vulnerabilities, and applications. It will then fix any vulnerabilities without doing damage to the site.
• SSH: Provides more secure file transfers.
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): If turned on, it will require the app on your smartphone to provide a unique security code that you must input apart from your password when trying to log into your account.
• Virus Scanner: Configurable scan of your account to identify any security threats.

Need Help? Ask Our Guru Crew

If you need support or just have a few WordPress Hosting questions, you can count on our expert Sales team! Working 24/7/365, our friendly and knowledgeable staff are more than happy to address any concerns or issues. You may also reach them via email, phone, or live chat, so you can get the answers you need when you need them.

The post New Managed WordPress Enhanced Security Features with A2 Hosting appeared first on The A2 Posting.

What does it mean to “optimize” your website?

Optimizing your website is the process of using tools, strategies, experiments, and analyses to improve your website’s performance with the end goal to drive more traffic to your website, increase conversions, and grow revenue. 

You may have heard of SEO or search engine optimization. SEO is only one aspect of optimization (albeit the most critical). 

Optimization combines a variety of dimensions for optimal website performance like

• SEO
• Your website’s content and landing pages
• Analytics
• UX (frontend)
• Web development (backend)

What is A2 Optimized?

A2 Optimized is a WordPress optimizer. It combines various ideal WordPress configurations to enhance website performance and increase security.

Performance-enhancing

A2’s motto is “our speed, your success” and A2 Optimized is no exception. Our plugin enhances speed with:

• Page caching – storing copies of your web pages in a temporary storage location for quicker access.
• Object caching – storing database query results in a temporary storage location for quicker access.
• Minifying (minimizing code) for HTML, CSS, and Javascript) in your web pages and script files.
• GZip data compression – takes chunks of data and makes it smaller.

Secure

Secondly, A2 Optimized is secure by:

• Denying direct access to configuration files.
• Preventing bots from submitting to comment forms.
• Cutting off the file editor in wp-admin.
• Preventing plugins and themes from wp-admin tampering.
• Disabling other bot-targeted services like XML-RPC.

A2 Optimized configures difficult settings so you don’t have to. If you’re not technically savvy, installing the W3 Total Cache plugin may prove challenging. But when Memcached is enabled for WordPress, A2 Optimized automatically installs the plugin for you. 

A2 Optimized combines the best caching features and enhanced security configurations making it the ideal WordPress plugin. And an extra bonus, it’s free and just as easy to install as it is to uninstall, so give it a try today to see if it’s right for you! 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is A2 Optimized free?

Yes, it is! 

Can I use A2 Optimized with any host?

Absolutely! A2 Optimized works with any WordPress-supporting host. However, A2 Hosting provides some of the fastest servers in the business, and also includes additional tools to speed up your site on our servers. 

Will A2 Optimized make all of my sites faster? That’s a guarantee?

A2 Optimized does speed up sites the majority of the time, but not all plugins and themes are created equal. 

If your site is slower after enabling caching in A2 Optimized, ensure you’re using the best plugins for your website by speaking with a developer.

Can I use A2 Optimized with WordFence?

A2 Optimized is compatible with the majority of features in WordFence, but we recommend disabling caching and logging in WordFence. Otherwise, if page caching in A2 Optimized is enabled, some WordFence features may not respond.

Related Links:

• Everything You Need to Know About the WordPress 5.7 Esperanza Update
• An Introduction to WordPress Toolkit Deluxe
• How to Install a WordPress Theme on Your Website
• WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com | What’s The Difference?

The post What is A2 Optimized (and how does it help your WordPress site)? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

This year, our new WordPress plans are getting a makeover with new features to boost it above and beyond our other Shared Hosting packages. Keep reading to learn what sets them apart. 

What’s the difference between Managed WordPress vs Shared Web Hosting?

To boil it down, Managed WordPress plans offer services and performance tweaks specific to WordPress whereas Shared Web Hosting plans are generalist plans that host anything from WordPress to Drupal. But Shared Web Hosting and Managed WordPress hosting are more similar than they are different. 

You see, both plans are managed and come with 24/7/365 support on phones, tickets, and LiveChats and both plans are on shared servers. 

To summarize, 

• Shared Web Hosting plans share resources with other sites on the same server.
• Managed WordPress plans offer additional WordPress-specific services and tweaks to performance in a shared environment.

Why Use Managed WordPress Plans?

Managed WordPress Hosting offers WordPress-specific services, performance optimizations, customizations, and other valuable add-ons and performance tweaks including:

• Jetpack: Jetpack is an all-in-one WordPress plugin. Even the free version of Jetpack is powerful. They have 1-click site speed optimizations to increase your SEO, brute force protection by blocking unwanted login attempts from malicious botnets, and automated spam filtering. 
• Less users per server.
• Faster plans (with 4x more physical memory than our Shared Hosting packages)
• A2 Optimized and LSCache settings to speed up your website. 
• WordPress Toolkit for easier site management.

Why Use Shared Hosting Plans?

Shared Web Hosting is an affordable option to hosting your website. It’s especially beneficial for new or lower traffic websites. With a typical shared hosting plan, to keep the costs low you’re sharing the server with other users. This means if something happens to one site on the server, your site may be affected. Luckily here at A2 Hosting, we don’t overload our servers with thousands of users on one server. This mitigates that risk. 

The Pros and Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting

Pros of Managed WordPress Hosting

• Server architecture finely tuned specifically for WordPress 
• Auto-testing any new updates to find potential issues before the updates go live.
• Automatic updates for WordPress. 
• Built-in server-level caching
• Free Jetpack license for your primary domain
• Site staging 
• cPanel
• LsCache, one of the fastest caching agents on the market
• A great in-between plan if you aren’t ready to upgrade to a VPS yet

Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting

• Managed WordPress plans are inherently more expensive due to more features
• Stricter limits/caps on resource usage
• Limited to hosting only WordPress sites 

The Pros and Cons of Shared Hosting

With everything, there’s a pros and cons list. Here are a few for Shared hosting:

Pros of Shared Hosting

• Less expensive way to host WordPress
• The ability to host unlimited websites
• Still has significant performance perks like our Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans
• Easy to seamlessly upgrade within the Shared ecosystem
• Site staging
• cPanel

Cons of Shared Hosting

• Can be slower than their Managed WordPress counterparts 
• Jetpack isn’t included
• Lack other performance-tweaking WordPress customizations

Which plan is better for WordPress?

There isn’t a single answer for this question. Only you know what’s best for your website and your needs. The best way to decide is to analyze what you need. Which plans will help you get to where you need?

To help you decide, consider the following:

• Are you going to host websites other than WordPress? If so, the decision is easy–stick with Shared Web Hosting packages. 

• Do you need all of the WordPress-specific customizations or is your site simple enough to get by on a Shared Web Hosting plan?

• What is your budget? Shared hosting plans are less expensive, but Managed WordPress plans have additional power and features that may be worth the investment. If the features sound nice enough to pay a little extra every month, consider it.
• Do you need automatic updates? WordPress updates automatically on our plans. Installing the latest versions of software means your site is as secure as possible. If you don’t need automatic updates, Shared hosting packages may be the better choice.
• How much traffic do you have? If your website is small and discreet, starting out on a Shared server is probably the best option, at least for a while. You can always upgrade to a Managed WordPress plan at any time. Smaller is always better to start. Then, scale up your needs as your business grows.

Also, consider this: the Managed WordPress plans are the best in-between plan if you need more resources than a Shared hosting package, but less than a VPS. If you’re unsure, as always, contact our sales team today to find out which plan is best for your needs. 

Whatever plan you decide is best for you, it’s a personal decision and we support you either way.

Related Articles: 

• How to Find the Right WordPress Plan (and Why It Should Be with A2 Hosting)
• How to Get Started with WordPress
• How to Install WordPress on Managed WordPress Hosting
• A Complete Guide on Navigating Your WordPress Dashboard
• How to Become an Expert WordPress Site Owner (3 Key Tips)

The post Managed WordPress vs Shared Web Hosting: What’s the Difference? appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Ann Arbor, MI—January 17, 2022—A2 Hosting, a provider of high-speed web hosting solutions, announced the availability of its new and improved portfolio of Managed WordPress plans. Modernizing its prior WordPress offerings, the new plans run on the company’s high-performing Turbo servers and introduce advanced features and tools—innovations that collectively increase website speed and security as well as ease of management for customers. The plans are available in four distinct packages to support various business requirements from single or multiple website deployments to basic corporate or eCommerce site configurations. 

“Last year, 70 percent of businesses chose to invest more in their digital presence. In parallel, over 60 percent of websites currently use WordPress as their content management system,” said Bryan Muthig, CEO, A2 Hosting. “We have a highly regarded track record of staying in step with our customers’ wants and needs which is why we released an extensive WordPress survey. The results guided us in creating our new Managed WordPress solutions that maximize, secure, and simplify the use of WordPress.” 

Run, Jump, Fly, Sell

As stated above, A2 Hosting’s WordPress experts developed the four different levels of WordPress plans based on feedback from current and prospective customers. All plans include cPanel’s WordPress Toolkit for easy site management. The tiers are defined as: 

• Run: The first tier plan is for WordPress beginners and hobbyists to quickly and easily get sites up and running. Run best fits the needs of users who are beginning on WordPress and need a strong foundation optimized with security and features that can be built on.
• Jump: The second tier plan is designed for professionals whose businesses need more resources and/or have up to five websites to host. Jump includes extras like Jetpack’s Daily Backup License and 250 GB of NVMe performance storage.
• Fly: The third tier plan is designed for experienced web professionals and developers who host a number of sites for themselves and their customers. Fly provides users with unlimited websites, unlimited NVMe storage, and free daily malware scans with Jetpack’s Security Daily License. 
• Sell: This tier is specifically crafted for eCommerce professionals, with WooCommerce pre-installed and optimized. Sell is also bundled with a premium RapidSSL certificate and a site seal to demonstrate enhanced security to customers. This plan is ideal for buying and selling using WordPress.

Advanced Plan Features and Benefits

The new Managed WordPress plans are supported 24/7/365 by A2 Hosting’s in-house Guru Crew. This team provides hands-on assistance with server and plan maintenance. The plans take a focused approach to help users increase their success rates with the popular CMS: 

•  Security Enhancements

Also included is extensive security, including features like a web application firewall, real-time antivirus protection, a network firewall, and patch management that detect, fix, and protect these hosting plans. The Fly and Sell plans also include Jetpack Daily Secure that addresses specific WordPress vulnerabilities through malware scans, brute force protection, automated spam filtering, and more to remove the guesswork from deploying the most secure website possible today. 

• Speed Optimization

The plans are hosted on A2 Hosting’s Turbo servers. The servers’ integrated NVMe storage, advanced LiteSpeed caching, and A2 Optimized plugin (which uses Memcached and TurboCache to accelerate website performance) to increase server speeds up to 20x faster than stock installation with 204% of standard disk performance.

• Managed Server Benefits

All plans come with complete server management. This includes features like 24/7 server maintenance, security, resource upgrades, malware scanning, and more. 

• WordPress-Specific Site Management Tools  

The plans also include newly introduced tools designed to aid and automate the speed and security of WordPress websites. The tools offer daily back-ups and malware scans, site speed scores, 1-click optimizations, optimized CSS, and other features. They are also bundled with cPanel’s Deluxe WordPress Toolkit, which helps users easily manage, update, back up, clone, stage, and secure WordPress websites.  

A2 Hosting’s New Managed WordPress plans are currently discounted, ranging in price from $11.99 to $41.99 per month.  

About A2 Hosting

Recently awarded Leader in Web Hosting for Summer 2021 by G2 and Best Cheap Dedicated Web Hosting by Digital.com, A2 Hosting, Inc. is a high-performance hosting services provider located in Ann Arbor, MI. The company delivers ultra-reliable solutions and 24/7/365 US-based support from its Guru Crew team. Since 2003, A2 Hosting has offered innovative, affordable, and developer-friendly hosting for small- and medium-sized businesses as well as web development agencies worldwide. Customers seeking the fastest hosting options in the industry can host websites of any size on A2’s Turbo Performance server platform featuring page load speeds up to 20X faster compared to competing solutions. To learn more, visit https://www.a2hosting.com.

### 

Press Contact:

Heather Ailara

211 Communications

+1.973.567.6040

heather@211comms.com

The post A2 Hosting Launches Next-Generation Managed WordPress Hosting appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Step 1: Purchase a Web Hosting Package

The first step to using A2’s SiteBuilder is finding a hosting package. If you’re unsure how to choose the best plan, please consult our guide. Selecting a package comes down to three main questions:

1. First, how many unique daily visitors does your site have?
2. What resources do you need? (disk space, bandwidth, CPU)
3. Do you need a managed or unmanaged solution?

We offer shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting plans with options for dedicated WordPress hosting and reseller hosting. 

Upon checkout, select which A2 SiteBuilder plan you want. 

We offer four tiers of SiteBuilder: (all prices reflect USD)

• Free (1-Page Site)
• Basic (10-Page Site) $6/monthly
• Business (10 Pages & Unlimited Templates) $12/monthly
• Enterprise (Unlimited Pages & Templates) $16/monthly

The hosting plan you need depends on answers to the above questions. If you’re still not sure, contact our sales team today. They’ll assess your hosting needs and set you up with an appropriate plan. 

Step 2: Log in to your cPanel to access A2 SiteBuilder

Once you purchase your website, log in to your cPanel to access A2’s SiteBuilder. 

Follow these instructions: 

1. In cPanel, locate the Software section and click the A2 Website Builder icon.
   
2. On the A2 Website Builder page, click the Create Site button.
   

Additional controls appear. Click Login under Actions. Then, it transfers you to the SiteBuilder. In this SiteBuilder, you can pick a theme, edit every page aspect, and add a blog or eCommerce integration.

Now you’re ready to design! Only three more steps until you’ve created the website of your dreams.

Step 3: Choose Your Template

We offer various pre-designed templates to customize to your liking. You can edit every aspect of the template, from the layout to the color schematics. 

Step 4: Add Content

You can’t sell a piece of a blank canvas at an art exhibition just as you can’t advertise your website without content. With A2’s SiteBuilder, you can add text, logos, headlines, videos, pictures, and any additional content to your website. 

Step 5: Publish Your Site

Once you’ve chosen a template and added your first content, you’re ready to publish your website. 

Click the Publish button and your website is off to the races! You can further edit your website at any time, whenever you need to add content or change existing content. 

And that’s all there is to it! A2’s SiteBuilder offers:

• A plethora of pre-designed templates 
• Easy drag and drop editing
• eCommerce capabilities 
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• Social sharing across social channels
• Easy image uploads
• Easy video integrations

In only 5 steps, you no longer need to worry about WordPress complications. A2’s SiteBuilder gives you WordPress power in a simple form!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is the A2 SiteBuilder included in my web hosting package?

Yes, you can add SiteBuilder to any one of our plans, but the cost depends on how many pages you need to design. We offer a free SiteBuilder package for one page, but if you need to design additional pages, we offer higher-tiered packages. 

Do I need technical expertise to use the A2 SiteBuilder?

No. We designed it for ease of use and for users of all experience levels. Even seasoned developers like it because of its ability to help you customize your website quickly and affordably.

Can I change my template after publishing my site?

Yes! You can change the website’s template at any time without losing any of the content. 

Related Resources:

• Build A Website Fast & Easy With The A2 Website Builder
• How to Design Your Site with A2 Website Builder
• 3 Ways Using a Website Builder Can Save You Time
• Should I Use A Website Builder Or Hire A Web Developer?
• Can You Build a Website for Free?

The post How Do I Create a Site Builder Website? The Step-By-Step Guide appeared first on The A2 Posting.

So, let’s get started! 

Best Free SEO Plugin – Yoast

There’s no I in Team Yoast. With over 25,000 five-star reviews, there’s a reason Yoast has carved their place in the plugin marketplace since 2008.

Want to rank higher in search engines? This plugin is a necessity. They consider themselves a versatile everyman application for SEO users of all kinds–from bakery owners to corporate giants. 

Sure, there’s a Premium version, but Yoast SEO Free is packed with the most important features you’ll ever need. 

Here at A2 Hosting, we use Yoast for all of our blog posts and like good students, we double check our work before publishing it into the ether of the internet. 

What we love about YoastSEO: 

• It automates mundane processes like writing titles and meta descriptions.
• Offers advanced XML sitemaps so Google can better understand your site’s structure.
• SEO analysis. 
• Readability analysis. Arguably Yoast’s best feature. Yoast uses an algorithm to determine how user-friendly your post reads. They offer several checkpoints to increase reading accessibility for humans and search engines. 

Who it’s best for: Websites actively creating content. 

Best Free WordPress Optimizer – A2 Optimized

Lazy loading images evoke a picture of a tortoise waking up from a nap, but in fact, they’re part of what improves loading speeds. Neil Patel says people don’t have patience for slow websites with 40% abandoning a website taking longer than 3 seconds to load. 

Technically, this is under the SEO umbrella as well, but every website owner can benefit from optimizing their images. 

Images that are lazy loading mean they’re only loaded when users see them instead of loading all at once when the initial page loads. 

Smush literally smushes your images down, compressing them into a smaller size, without sacrificing the quality (this is called lossless compression). 

What we love about it: 

• A user can compress or “bulk smush” up to 50 images in one click saving you the tedious task.
• The ability to resize images. Larger files mean longer loading times. You can set max width and height dimensions.
• No daily, monthly or annual limits for images up to 5MB in size. 
• Faulty image detection to quickly locate images slowing down your site.

Who it’s best for: Websites with a large volume of images. 

Best Free WordPress Optimizer – A2 Optimized

Did you know that A2 Hosting has our own in-house WordPress plugin? 

That’s right. A2 Optimized was designed specifically to enhance and secure your WordPress website. Our experts have tested the best settings and functionality configurations of third-party plugins. 

What we love about it: 

• Page caching capabilities. Storing full copies of webpages so that they can be accessed quicker by users and in turn speed up your site.
• The ability to compress the size of HTML pages to provide page load improvements.
• WordPress hardening rules to prevent browser access to specific files.
• Bot prevention for comment forms.

Who it’s best for: Any WordPress user wanting to optimize and secure their site with minimal manual effort.

Conclusion

These are obviously only three plugins out of thousands, but they are our favorite, and frankly, practical and efficient for your WordPress needs, whatever they may be. 

If you have any questions about how A2 Hosting can help your website, contact our sales team today!  If you’re looking for a host for your WordPress website check out our new Managed WordPress Hosting plans!

Related Resources: 

• An Introduction to Website Caching (And Why It’s Necessary)
• WordPress plugins A2 Hosting does not recommend
• A Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Plugins and How to Install Them
• How to Evaluate Your WordPress Plugins (In 3 Steps)

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Why do you need WordPress Under Construction Pages

You need either Coming Soon or Maintenance mode page prepared for your site for the following reason:

• Inform your potential visitors about your new site, and its launch date
• Collect information about your visitors with a contact us or subscription form
• Inform visitors about launch promotions
• Keep your site users on the maintenance duration and its duration
• Avoid losing SEO traffic by having the right response page.

Types of Under Construction Pages

When you create a new WordPress site and want your visitors to be aware of the launch date, a Coming Soon page is displayed. The maintenance mode page, on the other hand, is displayed when you are updating or performing routine maintenance tasks on your WordPress site. The Under Construction or maintenance mode page should clearly state the duration of the site’s downtime and include a 503 response code. The 503 response code informs search engines that the site will be restored, preventing any SEO issues.

Popular WordPress Under Construction Page Plugin

There are numerous WordPress plugins available that allow you to easily create both of these pages for your site while maintaining a professional look and feel. The following are some of the most popular WordPress Under Construction page plugins.

Seed Prod

SeedProd is a freemium plugin available in the WordPress plugin repository. This plugin allows you to easily create professional-looking and customizable “Coming Soon” and Maintenance Mode pages without any scripting knowledge.

The premium version of the SeedProd Coming Soon, Maintenance Mode, and Landing Pages plugin supports custom 404 errors. The free version templates are more than enough for a starter website, and the free pages can be further customized with SeedProd’s built-in page builder.

Refer to this article for a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a Coming Soon or Maintenance mode page with the SeedProd plugin.

WP Maintenance Mode

DesignModo’s WP Maintenance Mode is a free plugin that allows you to create fully customizable maintenance mode pages. It is suitable for multisite installations and includes useful features such as a countdown timer for maintenance duration, contact forms, and a subscription form to collect visitor information that can be downloaded later.

The maintenance mode can be activated immediately after installing the plugin. For more information on the extensive feature set available, go to the official plugin page at https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-maintenance-mode/.

Under Construction Page

The Web Factory Ltd Under Construction Page plugin is a specialized plugin that allows you to quickly and easily create under-construction pages using a drag and drop builder. The free version of this plugin includes unique features such as Google Analytics page visit tracking, the ability to load custom CSS to customize the page, and maintenance mode timers.

Conclusion

Have any questions? Contact our team today and we will be happy to answer them!

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