There are 12 entries in the FAQ.
Pages: 1
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Accessing your hosting control panel |
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Creating email accounts from your control panel |
 | There are two kinds of email accounts you can create on the server, as follows:
Forwarding email accounts receive email on one address and simply forward it to another. They do not store POP3 email accounts (mailboxes) receive email and keep it on the server until it is read from a mail reader (such as Outlook Express) or deleted by accessing your mailbox through webmail.
To create an email account on the server (either a forwarder or a POP3), login to your control panel as described above, then click on the "Mail" icon (upper left), then proceed as follows: To create a POP3 mailbox:
Select "Manage/Add/Remove Accounts" Select "Add Account" Enter your email address and password Select "Create".
You will need to configure your email reader as described in the next article.
To create an email forwarder:
Select "Forwarders" Enter the "from" and "to" email address and "Create"
In either case, send a test message to yourself at your new email account and see if you receive it. |
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Configuring POP3 email accounts in your mail reader |
 | Once you have created a POP3 email account on the server, you must configure your email reader to read email from that account. Typically, mail will sit on the server until you read it, and will then be deleted from the server once you read it. Every email program has slightly different configuration instructions, below are instructions for using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. If you are using a different mail program, consult the help file for "configuring email accounts". The mail parameters that you will need (server name, etc) are the same for all readers and are given below.
Instructions for configuring a POP3 email account in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express: Tools > Accounts Add > Mail (or New Mail Account) Name: Enter your name Email address > Enter your new email address (ie marc@mydomain.com) Incoming Server: mail.mydomain.com Outgoing Server: mail.mydomain.com Account name: your full email address, ie marc@mydomain.com Password: enter the password you entered when you created the account Finish
Then send a test message to yourself from another email account, and see if you can read it from Outlook or Outlook Express. If you are able to receive mail but cannot send, you may need to do an additional step, which is described in the FAQ items "I can receive but can't send email". |
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I can receive mail from Outlook but I can't send, what's up? |
 | If you are receiving mail on your new account correctly, but you get an error during send mail such as the following: The connection to the server has failed. Account: 'mail.bestseotools.com (1)', Server: 'mail.bestseotools.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10060, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E
This is the reason: Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block access to the default outgoing SMTP port on the BestCommerceTools server (25) for security reasons. You can always use the SMTP server setting provided by your ISP for sending email. But there is an an alternative which is to change the SMTP port number from your email software: From Outlook or Outlook Express, go to Tools > Accounts Select your email account and then click Properties Select the "Servers" tab Check the box "Outgoing Server Requires Authentication" Select the "Advanced" tab Under "Server Port Numbers: Outgoing Mail (SMTP)" Enter the number "26"" Click Ok and Exit.
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Accessing webmail |
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Go to your control panel (see above) and select Mail > Webmail. You can also go to http://yourdomain.com/webmail and login with your email and email password. (you don't need to know your control panel password for this, which is good since your control panel password should be a difficult-to-remember password) |
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How To Control Spam |
 | To find out how to you can control Spam mail click here. |
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Information we need to search-engine optimize your site |
 | Please submit this, ideally, with your website copy, in the same Word document that has a page-by-page description of your content. What we need to know for each page is the following:
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The page title. This is a 5-10 word sentence that appears on the browser navigation bar when people come to your site, and is also the first thing that people see for any search-engine search results that will bring up your page
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The page description (about 10-30 words). This is the page description that shows in the search engine results when your website comes up. We put this in the "description meta-tag", which is a special html tag on your site (you can see it by looking at the html source , View > Source in Internet Explorer).
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The keyword meta tags (about 5-15 keywords, or word pairs). This helps the search engine to determine how to index your site, and affects whether your page is returns for search results on the specified keywords. Ideally, you should do a little research to find "popular" keywords in your business (ie keywords that people actually search on), and included these in your keyword meta tags. Please do not get too obsessive about this, since it is far more important to put your "popular" keywords in the page text itself rather than in the meta tags. To find popular keywords, go to www.nichebot.com, click "Overture keywords", and enter the root word of your keyword search. You may also review the information at this link: http://www.bestcommercetools.com/bct/content/view/29/75/
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Using the PHPList mailing list manager |
 | CLick here for details.
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Tracking wesite statistics |
 | Your web hosting control panel (see above for access information) tracks all visitors to your website.
There is a lot of information in different categories, including:
- Number of unique visitors to your site in any given time period (the most important statistic, much more important than
"hits" which is just all the file accesses to your site)
- Referring urls (where they came from)
- Search engine keywords that people used that they found your site with
Most popular pages viewed - And much more
To view your website statistics, log in to your control panel and then select "Web/FTP stats" > AWStats.
(Awstats is one of best statistics package, you can also check out Webalizer if you like).
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Instructions for using SendStudio (professional autoresponder) |
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Simplified instructions for using the SendStudio systems are available here. |
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Producing your website video |
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Customers who have purchased any of our website packages have the option of posting a video to their site at no extra charge. You will need to produce this video first, as outlined below; and follow the steps for editing and compressing it. The BestCommerceTools video greeting was made using the exact procedure described below.
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Almost any digital camera now can product adequate small videos. Create your videos at the smallest size possible (160x120), and try not to go over 45 seconds. You will need a stable base (some kind of a tripod, although a pile of books will also do the job). Ideally you want to film your video indoors, under natural lighting (ie next to a bright window), and with a black background.
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Once the video is filmed and transferred to your computer (normally in .AVI format), you need to convert it to the format that is used by Flash (.flv). This will also compress it up to about 8 times, which is very necessary. You can download the free Riva flv encoder http://rivavx.com/?encoder. Encode it at the smallest size (160x120), at the lowest bandwidth (48kpbs), and a frame rate of 12. This will ensure that most web surfers will be able to view your video without any problem.
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If you are a customer of ours, you have only to upload the resulting .flv file to your project management dashboard and we'll take it from there!
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If you are NOT a customers, of ours, you will need an additional step. Download the Flash video player from www.jeroenwijering.com and follow the instructions there for posting your video. You will need to add some html code to your webpage and upload both the Flash video player and .flv file to your webiste.
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Recording your website audio greeting |
 | There are two ways you can make your website audio greeting. 1) If you are a customer of ours, you can call it in to (267) 295-1794. Follow the prompt and remember to check quality before hanging up by reviewing the message. This method does not give the best quality but is quick and easy. 2) If you are looking for better quality, or if you are not yet a customer (for example if you have downloaded the free audio player we offer), you must record the audio on your computer using a microphone and your sound card, as follows: Connect your microphone to your sound-card Microphone-in jack Open Windows Sound Recorder (in Programs > Accessories > Entertainment) Click on the red "Record" button and record your greeting Click "Stop" Preview your recording for tone and sound quality (see below) Select File > Save, and save your file as a .wav file
You will have to convert your file to mp3 format, we recommend a bitrate of 24 kbps and a sampling rate of 22 kHz as that is a good balance between sound quality and file size. You cannot use Windows Sound Record to save the file as mp3 as it doesn't appear to work with Flash software. Instead, you can use the free DBPowerAmp Music Converter for this. Tips on making a great audio: speak calmly but with expression. Enunciate your words. You should run a few volume tests before recording - try speaking closer or further from the microphone or else adjusting the loudness of your voice. What you are looking for is a good, clear, loud but undistorted sound. Make sure you minimize background noise during your recording. Also it is good to have someone listen to and review your message. Emphasize the benefits of the product or service you are selling to your potential customer rather than its features. For a guide on how to make a good audio for your site see AudioC4 |