I was in a brainstorming session with the A2 Hosting CEO today and I happened to be looking at the different hosting packages that we have to offer. A question came to mind regarding the difference in a shared hosting package with unlimited addon domains compared to a reseller package.

A2 Hosting says that addon domains allow you to “host a completely different domain within your existing webspace. For instance, if your main domain is “domain1.com”, you could use an addon domain to host “domain2.com” within the same account.”

How is that different from a reseller package that “gives you the ability to host as many domains as you’d like all under one affordable hosting plan” Not a bad question, huh?

So again the question at hand is what is the difference between a shared hosting package with unlimited addon domains compared to a reseller package? With a shared account, the addon domains will not have their very own cPanel and will be under the same main account. With a reseller package, users are given much more control over each new domain because each individual domain will receive their very own cPanel.

Easy enough!

At A2 Hosting, we continue to add pieces to the affiliate program puzzle to try and give our affiliates all of the necessary tools in order to be successful in promoting our company. Today’s puzzle piece is a coupon code that affiliates can use in order to give their web visitors an additional incentive to purchase web hosting from A2 Hosting. The coupon code you can use is:

10% off any A2 Hosting plans, just use the coupon “a2hostmost”. Expires 12/31/2007.

In case you were curious, Adventures in Hosting can now be found on Free RSS
Feeds Directory as well as BlogSweet Web Directory. Check them out if you have a moment to add us to your feed reader!

One of the characteristics that A2 Hosting prides themselves on is staying up to date on the latest web hosting technologies. It should come to no surprise that on October 6^th, A2 Hosting would spend the next 2 weeks upgrading to the newest version of PHP, 5.2.4.

One of my adventures in hosting has been to try and decipher what these technologies that I had never previously been exposed to actually are. PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a programming language that allows web developers to create dynamic web content that interacts with databases. I think that this definition should suffice for the time being as I learn more and more, and share my new knowledge with you. What is important is that if you are in need of the latest web hosting technologies (particularly PHP in this instance) than A2 Hosting should be your web host of choice.

I just made my first forum post regarding the A2 Hosting affiliate program on the forum AffiliateManager.net. It highlights the ridiculous increase in commission rate from 100% to 300%. I have included the post below so you can read it for yourself, or you can visit the forum post here: http://www.affiliatemanager.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6855.

A2 Hosting has recently tripled our commission rate from 100% to 300% of the first month’s sales amount not to mention throwing in a 25% 2nd Tier commission. This along with our affiliate marketing and web hosting expertise puts us on the forefront of web hosting affiliate programs. You can get more information about the program here http://www.a2hosting.com/services/affiliate-program.

An example of how this commission rate works is if a customer that you refer to us purchases a package that will cost them $17.95 for the first month, you will earn a $53.85 commission on that one sale ($17.95 X 300% = $53.85).

At A2 Hosting, our motto is “Leading Edge Hosting. Exceptional Support.” We stay on the leading edge by maintaining a developer friendly environment that offers the latest versions of the most powerful hosting software with services ranging from shared hosting, reseller hosting and VPS Hosting.

Come earn some REAL commission checks with this Web Hosting Affiliate Program.

A co-employee instant messaged me today, not that that is an unordinary event. Let’s say for argument sake that this employee’s name is Jeremy. This is how the conversation went:

Jeremy: favicon

Me: sweet

I decided to do a little research to see what “favicon” was. Remember, I work with some very technically intelligent people and they throw terms around all day that I don’t understand. Usually they are accompanied by some other words as well. Since this one word stood alone, it must have been meaningful. I decided to do a little research because as it turns out, I knew exactly what a favicon was.

Take a peak at the web address bar at the top of your browser. You will see the URL for this page. Next to that address, you will see a tiny picture of a guy with yellow sunglasses. That is a favicon, and that picture is Jeremy. I am sure you have noticed favicons before, but you might not have had a term to put with the picture. Yahoo has their “Y”, Google has their “G” and AdventuresInHosting has Jeremy. It was his idea, so he gets the favicon, short for favorite icon. Implementing one on your page isn’t as difficult as you might think. Below are the steps to get a favicon on your site.

1.) Choose a picture that you want as your favicon.

2.) Visit http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ and upload the picture next to the Browse button and click Create Icon. This site will automatically format your picture into a 16×16 favicon.

3.) Click Download FavIcon onto your computer.

4.) Use your ftp client to place the saved favicon file into the public_html folder. Locate the URL to where the file is. If you saved the file as the default .ico file name, it will be at your domain name with /favicon.ico at the end. For example, our favicon URL is http://adventuresinhosting.com/favicon.ico.

5.) You will need to add the following code into the tags of your web page’s html:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”www.YOURURL.COM/favicon.ico”>

Replace the “YOURURL/favicon.ico” with the web location of your favicon.

6.) Take a moment to visit your page and admire your beautiful new favicon.

The A2 Hosting affiliate program now has a way to test which banners and text links are performing better for affiliates by adding a tracking code to the end of their affiliate URL. Some call this a Sub ID. What’s the purpose of this? Say an affiliate has two A2 Hosting banners on her homepage and she wants to see which one is performing better in regards to clicks and sales. She can now get this information. How?

First, affiliates must log into their account here http://www.a2hosting.com/services/affiliate-program and click “Build & Track Your Own Links”. The affiliate must next choose which page she would like to link to from the drop down menu, or she can choose any page on a2hosting.com by “Defining Your Own”. She will need to name the link so that she will be able to differentiate between marketing materials. If the link is named Banner1, the affiliate link will look something like this http://www.a2hosting.com/0000-Banner1-15-custom.html. Notice the “Banner1” signifier in the link. This custom affiliate link will need to replace the default affiliate link being used so that the Sub ID statistics can be populated.

The A2 Hosting Affiliate program has just announced that they new have direct links as a method of affiliate promotion. This new affiliate linking method allows affiliates to link directly to a2hosting.com, as opposed to bouncing off of affiliates.a2hosting.com. Affiliates can log in here to grab the new links http://www.a2hosting.com/services/affiliate-program. Below is a concrete example of this new linking method, with 000 as a sample affiliate ID number.

- Old Affiliate Link Method: https://affiliates.a2hosting.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=000

- Brand New Affiliate Link Method: http://www.a2hosting.com/000.html

As you can see, both methods will get a web visitor to the A2 Hosting home page, but the new linking method is a lot more simplified. Why make this change? This will increase affiliate traffic and conversions because if a web visitor happens to view the link, it is a direct URL to our page as opposed to affiliates.a2hosting.com. Advanced web travelers may feel that “idevaffiliate.php?id=000” added to the end of a link is an advertisement and may not want to click on the link. The opposite can be said about “000.html” being added to the end of the URL, as this looks like any old link. And don’t forget that with the new method, affiliates link directly to a2hosting.com as opposed to affiliates.a2hosting.com.

In short, better conversions equal better commission payments. If affiliates do not want to change their current links to the new method, they do not have to as the old links still work, but the old linking method will no longer be available from here on out.

As I had mentioned in my previous post found here, A2 Hosting was going to launch a second affiliate program with the affiliate network ShareASale. Yesterday, we officially brought that program back from the grave and it is ready to roll. For details regarding this program, you can visit the re-vamped A2 Hosting ShareASale Information Page here. I have to say that I am pretty proud of the design of this page. I am not a graphic designer, but I think this page turned out to look darn attractive. If you sign up for the program over the next few days, you would have missed the following email that I sent out yesterday.

After a short hiatus, the A2 Hosting, Inc ShareASale affiliate program is back and better than ever. Before I give the details of the changes in the program, I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself. My name is Brad Litwin and I am the new affiliate manager for A2 Hosting. I am looking forward to working with you.

The most exciting news is a major increase in the commission rate. We have increased the commission rate to 275% of the first month’s sales amount, up from 100%. Yes 275%, you have read that correctly! As a concrete example, if the customer that you refer to us purchases a package that will cost them $17.95 for the first month, you will earn $49.36 on that one sale. Please take note that because of this increase in commission and because of the escalating costs and time involved with dedicated servers, we have decided that dedicated server packages will not be commissionable. This may be something that we will consider changing in the future, but we feel that our new commission structure gives affiliates a great chance at being prosperous.

I also wanted to make sure that you were aware of our second tier structure of 25%. Anyone that clicks through your affiliate link and signs up for the affiliate program will be placed on your second tier. If any affiliates on your second tier refer a sale, you earn 25% of the first month’s sales amount for the customer. For example, if any affiliate on your second tier makes a $10 sale for the first month, you earn $2.50.

I have also taken some time to re-vamp our marketing material. Take a moment to take a peek at the changes I have made by logging into your ShareASale account here http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=3326. If you do not remember your log in information, make sure to visit this page http://www.shareasale.com/a-lostusername.cfm so that ShareASale can send it to you. In your affiliate area, there are 7 logo banners linking to 3 landing pages which are our homepage at a2hosting.com, our reseller page and the shared hosting page. You will also find numerous text links linking to those pages, as well as a “Green Page” with information about A2 Hosting’s commitment to the Earth’s environment can be found.

We have also implemented an affiliate agreement into the program that we would like you to read when you get an opportunity.

If you have a specific need or have any specific suggestions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Most importantly, if you need help getting marketing material onto your site, I would be more than happy to help you out. Again, I look forward to working with you and creating a long, mutually beneficial partnership!

A2 Hosting is on the verge of launching another affiliate program. Actually, we can consider this a re-launch since this “new” affiliate program has been on hiatus since February 2006. This new program is on the ShareASale affiliate network. What’s the purpose of running two programs? We want to give affiliates a larger variety of choice of how they want to promote us. You can compare the difference in programs on this ShareASale information page http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=3326 to this in house program page http://www.a2hosting.com/services/affiliate-program.

The main difference between the two programs is the commission rate. The in-house A2 Hosting program pays 300% compared to 275% for the ShareASale program. These are both very generous commission rates, but it is still a difference of 25%. The in-house program also has the advantage of having greater capability for wider ranges of marketing material and contains text ads in addition to text links and banners.

So why might you want to join the ShareASale program instead of the in-house program? Some affiliates feel more comfortable with a network because they feel as though they have an advocate in case the affiliate-merchant relationship goes sour. I can understand this reason, but I can assure any affiliate interested in joining the A2 Hosting affiliate program that I am an experienced, dedicated affiliate manager and will go to bat for you whenever necessary. A second reason for joining the network affiliate program is because there are other programs that they can join as well, and there is one log in location for all of the programs that they join, instead of having a number of programs to join. Finally, receiving one consolidated check for each joined affiliate program is definitely a plus as it can save a number of trips to the bank. With gas prices the way they are today, this is certainly an incentive.

Whatever your choice, make sure to weigh the options and sign up today for either program, earning either 300% or 275% on the sales you refer.