At HostandStore.com, we think of ourselves as more than a web host. In fact, we actually receive many requests from customers hoping to learn more about their websites and how to market their businesses online. That’s why we published this blog post with 25 resources to help you learn SEO in February. This week, we’re going to feature some digital marketing experts who we can all learn from.

For many people, the word “server” only brings to mind a tool for web hosting. As we’ve discussed before, however, there are many great uses for servers. Today, we’re going to be talking about managing a server dedicated to email using your own domain. What we’re talking about in this post is slightly more advanced, but it’s something that any moderately able system administrator should have no trouble tackling.

If you’ve paid much attention to what’s been going on in the hosting world, you’ve probably heard about virtual private servers, or VPS for short. VPS are a popular type of server that many advanced webmasters and network administrators use to power their sites and applications.

Search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is much more than a buzzword in the technology community. It’s the act of optimizing websites so that search engines are more likely to rank them higher. While this may sound like some sort of mysterious magic, we promise you it’s not.

There are many ways businesses and individuals use servers. In most of these cases, this involves storing a tremendous amount of data – some of which is probably not intended for public knowledge. Many servers also power business websites, email platforms and even applications. Regardless of how a server is being used, unauthorized access to that server is no laughing matter. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 10 ways to help keep your server safe.

Everyone knows the old cliché, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” For centuries, people have used illustrations to tell stories visually. In more recent history, cameras have enabled us to capture still images in photographs. Now, images are having a tremendous impact on the web as well. Images are used to gain readers’ attention, to help narrate a story, to reinforce a point and to provide additional information. They create strong impressions and can be used to supplement content at any level. They can even be added to emails to improve engagement.

When servers work as expected, no one notices that they’re there. The minute a server stops fulfilling its duty, it can seem like the sky is falling. Many businesses – especially small businesses – live and die by the performance of their servers. That’s why choosing the right server and the appropriate configuration is so important.

Servers should be reliable, obviously. Business owners should also expect their servers to be secure, efficient and scalable. Secure servers protect company data and can regulate many business functions. Efficient server utilization helps keep costs where they should be. Scalable servers enable businesses to grow into themselves and can also help with daily operation. They’re there to help the business, not disrupt it.

Content management systems, commonly known as CMS, are applications that enable users to easily publish web content. A CMS allows users to create, and publish from a single interface.

The term domain name has been around since the beginning of the internet.

A domain name is the unique identifier given to a website or a server. The domain name points to the exact location that a website’s files are located. Without domain names, we would be typing addresses like “99.99.99.99” rather than “www.HostandStore.com” or “Google.com” every time we needed to navigate to a particular website.

A server is technically a piece of software that is capable of accepting requests and responding accordingly. Many people know a server to be the computer that the server software is actually running on. Throughout this article, we’ll be referring to the software – not the computer itself.